Historical development

Hebrew Bible

Balaam and the Angel (1836) by Gustav Jäger. The angel in this incident is referred to as a "satan".[3]

The original Hebrew term satan is a generic noun meaning "accuser" or "adversary",[4][5] which is used throughout the Hebrew Bible to refer to ordinary human adversaries,[6][5] as well as a specific supernatural entity.[6][5] The word is derived from a verb meaning primarily "to obstruct, oppose".[7] When it is used without the definite article (simply satan), the word can refer to any accuser,[6] but when it is used with the definite article (ha-satan), it usually refers specifically to the heavenly accuser: the satan.[6]

Psalm 109:6b "and let Satan stand at his right hand" (KJV)[11] or "let an accuser stand at his right hand." (ESV, etc.)

The word "satan" does not occur in the Book of Genesis,[12] which mentions only a talking serpent[12] and does not identify the serpent with any supernatural entity.[12] The first occurrence of the word "satan" in the Hebrew Bible in reference to a supernatural figure comes from Numbers 22:22,[13] which describes the Angel of Yahweh confronting Balaam on his donkey:[3] "Balaam's departure aroused the wrath of Elohim, and the Angel of Yahweh stood in the road as a satan against him."[13] In 2 Samuel 24, Yahweh sends the "Angel of Yahweh" to inflict a plague against Israel for three days, killing 70,000 people as punishment for David having taken a census without his approval.[14]1 Chronicles 21:1 repeats this story,[14] but replaces the "Angel of Yahweh" with an entity referred to as "a satan".[14]

Some passages clearly refer to the satan, without using the word itself.[15]1 Samuel 2:12 describes the sons of Eli as "sons of Belial";[16] the later usage of this word makes it clearly a synonym for "satan".[16] In 1 Samuel 16:14-23 Yahweh sends a "troubling spirit" to torment King Saul as a mechanism to ingratiate David with the king;[17] in 1 Kings 22:19-25, the prophet Micaiah describes to King Ahab a vision of Yahweh sitting on his throne surrounded by the Host of Heaven.[16] Yahweh asks the Host which of them will lead Ahab astray.[16] A "spirit", whose name is not specified, but who is analogous to the satan, volunteers to be "a Lying Spirit in the mouth of all his Prophets".[16]

Book of Job

The satan appears in the Book of Job, a poetic dialogue set within a prose framework,[18] which may have been written around the time of the Babylonian captivity;[18] in the text, Job is a righteous man favored by Yahweh.[18]Job 1:6-8 describes the "sons of God" (bənê hāʼĕlōhîm) presenting themselves before Yahweh.[18] Yahweh asks one of them, "the satan", where he has been, to which he replies that he has been patrolling the earth.[18] Yahweh asks, "Have you considered My servant Job?"[18] The satan replies by urging Yahweh to let him torture Job, promising that Job will abandon his faith at the first tribulation.[19] Yahweh consents; the satan destroys Job's servants and flocks, yet Job refuses to condemn Yahweh.[19] The first scene repeats itself, with the satan presenting himself to Yahweh alongside the other "sons of God".[20] Yahweh points out Job's continued faithfulness, to which the satan insists that more testing is necessary;[20] Yahweh once again gives him permission to test Job;[20] in the end, Job remains faithful and righteous, and it is implied that the satan is shamed in his defeat.[21]

Book of Zechariah

Zechariah 3:1-7 contains a description of a vision dated to the middle of February of 519 BC,[22] in which an angel shows Zechariah a scene of Joshua the High Priest dressed in filthy rags, representing the nation of Judah and its sins,[23] on trial with Yahweh as the judge and the satan standing as the prosecutor.[23] Yahweh rebukes the satan[23] and orders for Joshua to be given clean clothes, representing Yahweh's forgiveness of Judah's sins.[23]

The idea of Satan as an opponent of God and a purely evil figure seems to have taken root in Jewish pseudepigrapha during the Second Temple Period,[28] particularly in the apocalypses.[29] The Book of Enoch, which the Dead Sea Scrolls have revealed to have been nearly as popular as the Torah,[30] describes a group of 200 angels known as the "Watchers", who are assigned to supervise the earth, but instead abandon their duties and have sexual intercourse with human women.[31] The leader of the Watchers is Semjâzâ[32] and another member of the group, known as Azazel, spreads sin and corruption among humankind,[32] the Watchers are ultimately sequestered in isolated caves across the earth[32] and are condemned to face judgement at the end of time.[32] The Book of Jubilees, written in around 150 BC,[33] retells the story of the Watchers' defeat,[34] but, in deviation from the Book of Enoch, Mastema, the "Chief of Spirits", intervenes before they are all sealed away, requesting for Yahweh to let him keep some of them to become his workers.[35] Yahweh acquiesces this request[35] and Mastema uses them to tempt humans into committing more sins, so that he may punish them for their wickedness.[36] Later, Mastema induces Yahweh to test Abraham by ordering him to sacrifice Isaac.[36][37]

The Second Book of Enoch, also called the Slavonic Book of Enoch, contains references to a Watcher called Satanael,[38] it is a pseudepigraphic text of an uncertain date and unknown authorship. The text describes Satanael as being the prince of the Grigori who was cast out of heaven[39] and an evil spirit who knew the difference between what was "righteous" and "sinful";[40] in the Book of Wisdom, the devil is represented as the being who brought death into the world.[41] The name Samael, which is used in reference to one of the fallen angels, later became a common name for Satan in Jewish Midrash and Kabbalah.[42]

Judaism

Rabbinical Judaism

The sound of a shofar (pictured) is believed to symbolically confuse Satan.

Most Jews do not believe in the existence of a supernatural omnimalevolent figure.[43] Traditionalists and philosophers in medieval Judaism adhered to rational theology, rejecting any belief in rebel or fallen angels, and viewing evil as abstract.[44] The Rabbis usually interpreted the word satan as it is used in the Tanakh as referring strictly to human adversaries[45] and rejected all of the Enochian writings mentioning Satan as a literal, heavenly figure from the Biblical canon, making every attempt to root them out.[28] Nonetheless, the word satan has occasionally been metaphorically applied to evil influences,[46] such as the Jewish exegesis of the yetzer hara ("evil inclination") mentioned in Genesis 6:5.[47] Rabbinical scholarship on the Book of Job generally follows the Talmud and Maimonides in identifying "the satan" from the prologue as a metaphor for the yetzer hara and not an actual entity.[48] Satan is rarely mentioned in Tannaitic literature, but is found in Babylonian aggadah.[29] According to a narration, the sound of the shofar, which is primarily intended to remind Jews of the importance of teshuva, is also intended symbolically to "confuse the accuser" (Satan) and prevent him from rendering any litigation to God against the Jews.[49] In Hasidic Judaism, the Kabbalah presents Satan as an agent of God whose function is to tempt humans into sinning so that he may accuse them in the heavenly court,[50] the Hasidic Jews of the 18th century associated ha-Satan with Baal Davar.[51]

Modern Judaism

Each sect of Judaism has its own interpretation of Satan's identity. Conservative Judaism generally rejects the Talmudic interpretation of Satan as a metaphor for the yetzer hara, and regard him as a literal agent of God.[52]Orthodox Judaism, on the other hand, outwardly embraces Talmudic teachings on Satan, and involves Satan in religious life far more inclusively than other sects. Satan is mentioned explicitly in some daily prayers, including during Shacharit and certain post-meal benedictions, as described in Talmud[53] and the Jewish Code of Law.[54] In Reform Judaism, Satan is generally seen in his Talmudic role as a metaphor for the yetzer hara and the symbolic representation of innate human qualities such as selfishness.[55]

Christianity

Names

The most common English synonym for "Satan" is "devil", which descends from Middle Englishdevel, from Old Englishdēofol, that in turn represents an early Germanic borrowing of Latindiabolus (also the source of "diabolical"). This in turn was borrowed from Greekdiabolos "slanderer", from diaballein "to slander": dia- "across, through" + ballein "to hurl".[56] In the New Testament, the words Satan and diabolos are used interchangeably as synonyms.[57][58]Beelzebub, meaning "Lord of Flies", is the contemptuous name given in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament to a Philistine god whose original name has been reconstructed as most probably "Ba'al Zabul", meaning "Baal the Prince".[59] The Synoptic Gospels identify Satan and Beelzebub as the same,[57] the name Abaddon (meaning "place of destruction") is used six times in the Old Testament, mainly as a name for one the regions of Sheol.[60]Revelation 9:11 describes Abaddon, whose name is translated into Greek as Apollyon, meaning "the destroyer", as an angel who rules the Abyss.[61] In modern usage, Abaddon is sometimes equated with Satan.[60]

The name Heylel, meaning "morning star", was a name for Attar, the god of the planet Venus in Canaanite mythology,[62] who attempted to scale the walls of the heavenly city,[63][62] but was vanquished by the god of the sun.[63] The name is used in Isaiah 14:12 in metaphorical reference to the king of Babylon.[63] Later tradition reinterpreted this passage as a reference to the fall of Satan,[64][65] the Latin Vulgate translation of this passage renders Heylel as "Lucifer"[66] and this name continues to be used by some Christians as an alternative name for Satan.[66] In a similar vein, Ezekiel 28:12-15, a passage about a cherub in Eden which is primarily a polemic against Ithobaal II, the king of Tyre,[67] has also been interpreted by some Christians as simultaneously metaphorically alluding to the fall of Satan.[68]

New Testament

Gospels, Acts, and epistles

The three Synoptic Gospels all describe the temptation of Christ by Satan in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:12-13, and Luke 4:1-13).[69] Satan first shows Jesus a stone and tells him to turn it into bread,[69] he also takes him to the pinnacle of the Temple in Jerusalem and commands Jesus to throw himself down so that the angels will catch him.[69] Satan takes Jesus to the top of a tall mountain as well; there, he shows him the kingdoms of the earth and promises to give them all to him if he will bow down and worship him.[69] Each time Jesus rebukes Satan[69] and, after the third temptation, he is administered by the angels.[69] Satan's promise in Matthew 4:8-9 and Luke 4:6-7 to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth implies that all those kingdoms belong to him,[70] the fact that Jesus does not dispute Satan's promise indicates that the authors of those gospels believed this to be true.[70]

Satan plays a role in some of the parables of Jesus, namely the Parable of the Sower, the Parable of the Weeds, Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, and the Parable of the Strong Man.[71] According to the Parable of the Sower, Satan "profoundly influences" those who fail to understand the gospel,[72] the latter two parables say that Satan's followers will be punished on Judgement Day, with the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats stating that the Devil, his angels, and the people who follow him will be consigned to "eternal fire".[73] When the Pharisees accused Jesus of exorcising demons through the power of Beelzebub, Jesus responds by telling the Parable of the Strongman, saying: "how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house" (Matthew 12:29).[74] The strong man in this parable represents Satan.[75]

Revelation 12:3 describes a vision of a Great Red Dragon with seven heads, ten horns, seven crowns, and a massive tail,[95] an image which is clearly inspired by the vision of the four beasts from the sea in the Book of Daniel[96] and the Leviathan described in various Old Testament passages.[97] The Great Red Dragon knocks "a third of the sun... a third of the moon, and a third of the stars" out the sky[98] and pursues the Woman of the Apocalypse.[98]Revelation 12:7-9 declares: "And war broke out in Heaven. Michael and his angels fought against Dragon. Dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in Heaven. Dragon the Great was thrown down, that ancient serpent who is called Devil and Satan, the one deceiving the whole inhabited World - he was thrown down to earth and his angels were thrown down with him."[99] Then a voice booms down from Heaven heralding the defeat of "the Accuser" (ho Kantegor),[100] identifying the Satan of Revelation with the satan of the Old Testament.[100]

After the New Testament

Theology

For most Christians, Satan is believed to be an angel who rebelled against God,[105] the early Christian church encountered opposition from pagans such as Celsus, who claimed that "it is blasphemy...to say that the greatest God...has an adversary who constrains his capacity to do good" and said that Christians "impiously divide the kingdom of God, creating a rebellion in it, as if there were opposing factions within the divine, including one that is hostile to God".[106]

Mormonism developed its own views on Satan. According to the Book of Moses, the Devil offered to be the redeemer of mankind for the sake of his own glory. Conversely, Jesus offered to be the redeemer of mankind so that his father's will would be done, after his offer was rejected, Satan became rebellious and was subsequently cast out of heaven.[122] In the Book of Moses, Cain is said to have "loved Satan more than God"[123] and conspired with Satan to kill Abel, it was through this pact that Cain became a Master Mahan.[124] The Book of Moses also says that Moses was tempted by Satan before calling upon the name of the "Only Begotten", which caused Satan to depart. Douglas Davies asserts that this text "reflects" the temptation of Jesus in the Bible.[125]

Belief in Satan and demonic possession remains strong among Christians in the United States[126][127][128] and Latin America.[129] According to a 2013 poll conducted by YouGov, fifty-seven percent of people in the United States believe in a literal Devil,[126] compared to eighteen percent of people in Britain.[126] Fifty-one percent of Americans believe that Satan has the power to possess people.[126] W. Scott Poole, author of Satan in America: The Devil We Know, has opined that "In the United States over the last forty to fifty years, a composite image of Satan has emerged that borrows from both popular culture and theological sources" and that most American Christians do not "separate what they know [about Satan] from the movies from what they know from various ecclesiastical and theological traditions."[116] The Catholic Church generally played down Satan and exorcism during late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries,[129] but Pope Francis brought renewed focus on the Devil in the early 2010s, stating, among many other pronouncements, that "The devil is intelligent, he knows more theology than all the theologians together."[129][130] According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, liberal Christianity tends to view Satan "as a [figurative] mythological attempt to express the reality and extent of evil in the universe, existing outside and apart from humanity but profoundly influencing the human sphere."[131]

Bernard McGinn describes multiple traditions detailing the relationship between the Antichrist and Satan.[132] In the dualist approach, Satan will become incarnate in the Antichrist, just as God became incarnate in Jesus.[132] However, in Orthodox Christian thought, this view is problematic because it is too similar to Christ's incarnation.[132] Instead, the "indwelling" view has become more accepted,[132] which stipulates that the Antichrist is a human figure inhabited by Satan,[132] since the latter's power is not to be seen as equivalent to God's.[132]

Iconography

Satan's appearance is never described in the Bible or any early Christian writings,[135][134] though Paul the Apostle wrote that "Satan disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14).[136] The Devil was never shown in early Christian artwork[135][134] and first appears in medieval art of the ninth century,[137] where he is shown with cloven hooves, hairy legs, the tail of a goat, pointed ears, a beard, a flat nose, and a set of horns.[133][134][109] In the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, Jesus separates sheep (representing the saved) from goats (representing the damned).[73] It is through this biblical passage that the Devil became associated with goats.[138] Medieval Christians were known to adapt previously existing pagan iconography to suit depictions of Christian figures.[133][134] Much of Satan's traditional iconography is apparently derived from Pan,[133][134] a rustic, goat-legged fertility god in ancient Greek religion.[133][134] Early Christian writers such as Saint Jerome equated the Greek satyrs and the Roman fauns, whom Pan resembled, with demons.[133][134] The Devil's pitchfork appears to have been adapted from the trident wielded by the Greek god Poseidon[134] and Satan's flame-like hair seems to have originated from the Egyptian god Bes.[134] By the High Middle Ages, Satan and devils appear in all works of Christian art: in paintings, sculptures, and on cathedrals.[139] Satan is usually depicted naked,[134] but his genitals are rarely shown and are often covered by animal furs,[134] some Christians associate Satan with the number 666, which Revelation 13:18 describes as the Number of the Beast.[140] However, the beast mentioned in Revelation 13 is not Satan,[141] and the use of 666 in the Book of Revelation has been interpreted as a reference to the Roman Emperor Nero, as 666 is the numeric value of his name in Hebrew.[140]

Demonic possession and witchcraft

Most early Christians firmly believed that Satan and his demons had the power to possess humans[142] and exorcisms were widely practiced by Jews, Christians, and pagans alike.[142] Belief in demonic possession continued through the Middle Ages into the early modern period.[143][144] Exorcisms were seen as a display of God's power over Satan,[112] the vast majority of people who thought they were possessed by the Devil did not suffer from hallucinations or other "spectacular symptoms",[145] but "complained of anxiety, religious fears, and evil thoughts."[145]

By the 1430s, the Catholic Church began to regard witchcraft as part of a vast conspiracy led by Satan himself;[149] in the late fifteenth century, a series of witchcraft panics erupted in France and Germany.[148][149] In the mid-sixteenth century, the panic spread to England and Switzerland.[148] Both Protestants and Catholics alike firmly believed in witchcraft as a real phenomenon and supported its prosecution;[150] in the late 1500s, the Dutch demonologist Johann Weyer argued in his treatise De praestigiis daemonum that witchcraft did not exist,[151] but that Satan promoted belief in it to lead Christians astray.[151] The panic over witchcraft intensified in the 1620s and continued until the end of the 1600s.[148] Brian Levack estimates that around 60,000 people were executed for witchcraft during the entire span of the witchcraft hysteria.[148]

By the early 1600s, skeptics, including the English author Reginald Scot and the Anglican bishop John Bancroft, had begun to criticize the belief that demons still had the power to possess people,[152] this skepticism was bolstered by the belief that miracles only occurred during the Apostolic Age, which had long since ended.[153] Later, Enlightenment thinkers, such as David Hume, Denis Diderot, and Voltaire, attacked the notion of Satan's existence altogether.[154] Voltaire labelled John Milton's Paradise Lost a "disgusting fantasy"[154] and declared that belief in Hell and Satan were among the many lies propagated by the Catholic Church to keep humanity enslaved.[154]

Islam

The Arabic equivalent of the word Satan is Shaitan (شيطان, from the root šṭn شط⁬ن). The word itself is an adjective (meaning "astray" or "distant", sometimes translated as "devil") that can be applied to both man ("al-ins", الإنس) and al-jinn (الجن‎‎‎‎), but it is also used in reference to Satan in particular. In the Quran, Satan's name is Iblis (Arabic pronunciation: [ˈibliːs]), probably a derivative of the Greek word diabolos.[155] Muslims do not regard Satan as the cause of evil, but as a tempter, who takes advantage of humans' inclinations toward self-centeredness.[156]

Quran

Illustration from an Arabic manuscript of the Annals of al-Tabari showing Iblis refusing to prostrate before the newly-created Adam

Seven suras in the Quran describe how God ordered all the angels and Iblis to bow before the newly-created Adam.[5][157][155] All the angels bowed, but Iblis refused,[5][157][155] claiming to be superior to Adam because he was made from fire; whereas Adam was made from clay (7:12).[155] Consequently, God expelled him from Paradise[5][155] and condemned him to Jahannam.[158][155] Iblis thereafter became a kafir, "an ungrateful disbeliever",[5] whose sole mission is to lead humanity astray.[5][159] God allows Iblis to do this,[5][160] because He knows that the righteous will be able to resist Iblis's attempts to misguide them,[5] on Judgement Day, while the lot of Satan remains in question,[161] those who followed him will be thrown into the fires of Jahannam.[158][155] After his banishment from Paradise, Iblis, who thereafter became known as Al-Shaitan ("the Demon"),[158] lured Adam and Eve into eating the fruit from the forbidden tree.[158][155][162]

The primary characteristic of Satan, aside from his hubris and despair, is his ability to cast evil suggestions (waswās) into men and women.[163]15:45 states that Satan has no influence over the righteous,[164] but that those who fall in error are under his power.[164]7:156 implies that those who obey God's laws are immune to the temptations of Satan.[164]56:79 warns that Satan tries to keep Muslims from reading the Quran[165] and 16:98-100 recommends reciting the Quran as an antidote against Satan.[165]35:6 refers to Satan as the enemy of humanity[165] and 36:60 forbids humans from worshipping him.[165] In the Quranic retelling of the story of Job, Job knows that Satan is the one tormenting him.[165]

Islamic tradition

Affiliation

In the Quran, Satan is apparently an angel,[155] but, in 18:50, he is described as "from the jinns".[155] This, combined with the fact that he describes himself as having been made from fire, posed a major problem for Muslims exegetes of the Quran,[155] who disagree on whether Satan is a fallen angel or the leader of a group of evil jinn.[166] According to a hadith from Ibn Abbas, Iblis was actually an angel whom God created out of fire. Ibn Abbas asserts that the word jinn could be applied to earthly jinn, but also to "fiery angels" like Satan.[167]

Hasan of Basra, an eminent Muslim theologian who lived in the seventh century AD, was quoted as saying: "Iblis was not an angel even for the time of an eye wink. He is the origin of Jinn as Adam is of Mankind."[168] The medieval Persian scholar Abu Al-Zamakhshari states that the words angels and jinn are synonyms.[169] Another Persian scholar, Al-Baydawi, instead argues that Satan hoped to be an angel,[169] but that his actions made him a jinn.[169] Other Islamic scholars argue that Satan was a jinn who was admitted into Paradise as a reward for his righteousness and, unlike the angels, was given the choice to obey or disobey God. When he was expelled from Paradise, Satan blamed humanity for his punishment.[170] Concering the fiery origin of Iblis, Zakariya al-Qazwini and Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Ibshīhī[171] state that all supernatural creatures originated from fire but the angels from its light and the jinn from its blaze, thus fire denotes a disembodiment origin of all spiritual entities.[172]

The Muslim historian Al-Tabari, who died in around 923 AD,[155] writes that, before Adam was created, earthly jinn made of smokeless fire roamed the earth and spread corruption,[173] he further relates that Iblis was originally an angel named Azazil or Al-Harith,[174] from a group of angels, in contrast to the jinn, created from the fires of simoom,[175] who was sent by God to confront the earthly jinn.[176][155] Azazil defeated the jinn in battle and drove them into the mountains,[176] but he became convinced that he was superior to humans and all the other angels, leading to his downfall;[176] in this account, Azazil's group of angels were called jinn because they guarded Jannah (Paradise).[177] In another tradition recorded by Al-Tabari, Satan was one of the earthly jinn, who was taken captive by the angels[164][155] and brought to Heaven as a prisoner.[164][155] God appointed him as judge over the other jinn and he became known as Al-Hakam,[164] he fulfilled his duty for a thousand years before growing negligent,[155] but was rehabilitated again and resumed his position until his refusal to bow before Adam.[155]

Other traditions

A stoning of the Devil from 1942

During the first two centuries of Islam, Muslims almost unanimously accepted the historicity of a tradition known as the Satanic Verses.[178] According to this narrative, Muhammad was told by Satan to add words to the Quran which would allow Muslims to pray for the intercession of pagan goddesses,[179] he mistook the words of Satan for divine inspiration.[178] Modern Muslims almost universally reject this story as heretical, as it calls the integrity of the Quran into question.[180]

On the third day of the Hajj, Muslim pilgrims to Mecca throw seven stones at a pillar known as the Jamrah al-’Aqabah, symbolizing the stoning of the Devil.[181] This ritual is based on the Islamic tradition that, when God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael, Satan tempted him three times not to do it, and, each time, Abraham responded by throwing seven stones at him.[181][182]

The hadith teach that newborn babies cry because Satan touches them while they are being born, and that this touch causes people to have an aptitude for sin,[183] this doctrine bears some similarities to the doctrine of original sin.[183] Muslim tradition holds that only Jesus and Mary were not touched by Satan at birth.[183] However, when he was a boy, Muhammad's heart was literally opened by an angel, who removed a black clot that symbolized sin.[183]

Angels bow before the newly created Adam, but Iblis (top right on the picture) refuses to prostrate

Muslim tradition preserves a number of stories involving dialogues between Jesus and Iblis,[176] all of which are intended to demonstrate Jesus's virtue and Satan's depravity.[184]Ahmad ibn Hanbal records an Islamic retelling of Jesus's temptation by Satan in the desert from the Synoptic Gospels.[176] Ahmad quotes Jesus as saying, "The greatest sin is love of the world. Women are the ropes of Satan. Wine is the key to every evil."[184]Abu Uthman al-Jahiz credits Jesus with saying, "The world is Satan's farm, and its people are his plowmen."[176]Al-Ghazali tells an anecdote about how Jesus went out one day and saw Satan carrying ashes and honey;[185] when he asked what they were for, Satan replied, "The honey I put on the lips of backbiters so that they achieve their aim. The ashes I put on the faces of orphans, so that people come to dislike them."[185] The thirteenth-century scholar Sibt ibn al-Jawzi states that, when Jesus asked him what truly broke his back, Satan replied, "The neighing of horses in the cause of Allah."[185]

According to Sufi mysticism, Iblis refused to bow to Adam because he was fully devoted to God alone and refused to bow to anyone else,[186][169] for this reason, Sufi masters regard Satan and Muhammad as the two most perfect monotheists.[186] Sufis reject the concept of dualism[186][187] and instead believe in the unity of existence;[187] in the same way that Muhammad was the instrument of God's mercy,[186] Sufis regard Satan as the instrument of God's wrath.[186]

Muslims believe that Satan is also the cause of deceptions originating from the mind and desires for evil, he is regarded as a cosmic force for separation, despair and spiritual envelopment. Muslims do distinguish between the satanic temptations and the murmurings of the bodily lower self (Nafs), the lower self commands the person to do a specific task or to fulfill a specific desire; whereas the inspirations of Satan tempt the person to do evil in general and, after a person successfully resists his first suggestion, Satan returns with new ones.[188] If a Muslim feels that Satan is inciting him to sin, he is advised to seek refuge with God by reciting: "In the name of Allah, I seek refuge in you, from Satan the outcast." Muslims are also obliged to "seek refuge" before reciting the Quran.[189]

Bahá'í Faith

In the Bahá'í Faith, Satan is not regarded as an independent evil power as he is in some faiths,[190][191] but signifies the lower nature of humans.[190][191]`Abdu'l-Bahá explains: "This lower nature in man is symbolized as Satan — the evil ego within us, not an evil personality outside."[190][191] All other evil spirits described in various faith traditions—such as fallen angels, demons, and jinns—are also metaphors for the base character traits a human being may acquire and manifest when he turns away from God.[192] Actions, that are described as "satanic" in some Bahá'í writings, denote humans deeds caused by selfish desires.[193]

Theistic Satanism

Theistic Satanism, commonly referred to as "devil worship",[195] views Satan as a deity, whom individuals may supplicate to,[196][197] it consists of loosely affiliated or independent groups and cabals, which all agree that Satan is a real entity.[198]

Atheistic Satanism

Atheistic Satanism, most commonly referred to as LaVeyan Satanism, holds that Satan does not exist as a literal anthropomorphic entity, but rather as a symbol of a cosmos which Satanists perceive to be permeated and motivated by a force that has been given many names by humans over the course of time. In this religion, "Satan" is not viewed or depicted as a hubristic, irrational, and fraudulent creature, but rather is revered with Prometheus-like attributes, symbolizing liberty and individual empowerment. To adherents, he also serves as a conceptual framework and an external metaphorical projection of the Satanist's highest personal potential.[199][200][201][202][203] In his essay "Satanism: The Feared Religion", the current High Priest of the Church of Satan, Peter H. Gilmore, further expounds that "...Satan is a symbol of Man living as his prideful, carnal nature dictates, the reality behind Satan is simply the dark evolutionary force of entropy that permeates all of nature and provides the drive for survival and propagation inherent in all living things. Satan is not a conscious entity to be worshiped, rather a reservoir of power inside each human to be tapped at will".[204]

LaVeyan Satanists embrace the original etymological meaning of the word "Satan" (Hebrew: שָּׂטָן satan, meaning "adversary"). According to Peter H. Gilmore, "The Church of Satan has chosen Satan as its primary symbol because in Hebrew it means adversary, opposer, one to accuse or question. We see ourselves as being these Satans; the adversaries, opposers and accusers of all spiritual belief systems that would try to hamper enjoyment of our life as a human being."[205]

Allegations of worship

The main deity in the tentatively Indo-European pantheon of the Yazidis, Melek Taus, is similar to the devil in Christian and Islamic traditions, as he refused to bow down before humanity. Therefore Christians and Muslims often consider Melek Taus to be Satan.[206] However, rather than being Satanic, Yazidism can be understood as a remnant of a pre-Islamic Middle Eastern Indo-European religion, and/or a ghulatSufi movement founded by Shaykh Adi. In fact, there is no entity in Yazidism which represents evil in opposition to God; such dualism is rejected by Yazidis.[207]

Wicca is a modern, syncreticNeopagan religion,[209] whose practitioners many Christians have incorrectly assumed to worship Satan.[209] In actuality, Wiccans do not believe in the existence of Satan or any analogous figure[209] and have repeatedly and emphatically rejected the notion that they venerate such an entity,[209] the cult of the skeletal figure of Santa Muerte, which has grown exponentially in Mexico,[210][211] has been denounced by the Catholic Church as Devil-worship.[212] However, devotees of Santa Muerte view her as an angel of death created by God,[213] and many of them identify as Catholic.[214]

Much modern folklore about Satanism does not originate from the actual beliefs or practices of theistic or atheistic Satanists, but rather from a mixture of medieval Christian folk beliefs, political or sociological conspiracy theories, and contemporary urban legends.[215][216][217][218] An example is the Satanic ritual abuse scare of the 1980s — beginning with the memoir Michelle Remembers — which depicted Satanism as a vast conspiracy of elites with a predilection for child abuse and human sacrifice.[216][217] This genre frequently describes Satan as physically incarnating in order to receive worship.[218]

In Dante Alighieri's Inferno, Satan appears as a giant demon, frozen mid-breast in ice at the center of the Ninth Circle of Hell.[219] Satan has three faces and a pair of bat-like wings affixed under each chin;[220] in his three mouths, Satan gnaws on Brutus, Judas Iscariot, and Cassius,[220] whom Dante regarded as having betrayed the "two greatest heroes of the human race":[221]Julius Caesar, the founder of the new order of government, and Jesus, the founder of the new order of religion.[221] As Satan beats his wings, he creates a cold wind that continues to freeze the ice surrounding him and the other sinners in the Ninth Circle.[220] Dante and Virgil climb up Satan's shaggy legs until gravity is reversed and they fall through the earth into the southern hemisphere.[221]

In music

References to Satan in music can be dated back to the Middle Ages, during the fifth century, a musical interval called the tritone became known as "the devil in Music" and was banned by the Catholic Church.[242]Giuseppe Tartini was inspired to write his most famous work, the Violin Sonata in G minor, also known as "The Devil's Trill", after dreaming of the Devil playing the violin. Tartini claimed that the sonata was a lesser imitation of what the Devil had played in his dream.[243]Niccolò Paganini was believed to have derived his musical talent from a deal with the Devil.[244]Charles Gounod's Faust features a narrative that involves Satan.[242]

^Stephen M. Hooks – 2007 "As in Zechariah 3:1–2 the term here carries the definite article (has'satan="the satan") and functions not as a...the only place in the Hebrew Bible where the term "Satan" is unquestionably used as a proper name is 1 Chronicles 21:1."

^Coogan, Michael D.; A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament: The Hebrew Bible in Its Context, Oxford University Press, 2009

^Rachel Adelman The Return of the Repressed: Pirqe De-Rabbi Eliezer p65 "However, in the parallel versions of the story in Chronicles, it is Satan (without the definite article),"

^Peter Clark, Zoroastrianism: An Introduction to Ancient Faith 1998, page 152 "There are so many features that Zoroastrianism seems to share with the Judeo-Christian tradition that it would be difficult to ... Historically the first point of contact that we can determine is when the Achaemenian Cyrus conquered Babylon ..539 BC"

^"And I threw him out from the height with his angels, and he was flying in the air continuously above the bottomless" – 2 Enoch 29:4

^"The devil is the evil spirit of the lower places, as a fugitive he made Sotona from the heavens as his name was Satanail, thus he became different from the angels, but his nature did not change his intelligence as far as his understanding of righteous and sinful things" – 2 Enoch 31:4

^Robert Eisen Associate Professor of Religious Studies George Washington University The Book of Job in Medieval Jewish Philosophy 2004 p120 "Moreover, Zerahfiiah gives us insight into the parallel between the Garden of Eden story and the Job story alluded to ... both Satan and Job's wife are metaphors for the evil inclination, a motif Zerahfiiah seems to identify with the imagination."

^ abRaising the Devil: Satanism, New Religions, and the Media, by Bill Ellis, University Press of Kentucky p. 125 In discussing myths about groups accused of Satanism, "...such myths are already pervasive in Western culture, and the development of the modern "Satanic Scare" would be impossible to explain without showing how these myths helped organize concerns and beliefs". Accusations of Satanism are traced from the witch hunts, to the Illuminati, to the Satanic Ritual Abuse panic in the 1980s, with a distinction made between what modern Satanists believe and what is believed about Satanists.

1.
Devil
–
The Devil is, according to Christianity, the primary opponent of God. Islam identifies the Devil with all those who oppose Allah, some non-Abrahamic religions contain figures similar to the Devil, such as the Buddhist demon Mara and the Zoroastrian spirit Angra Mainyu. The Modern English word devil descends from the Middle English devel, from Old English dēofol, that in turn represents an early Germanic borrowing of Latin diabolus. This in turn was borrowed from Ancient Greek Greek, διάβολος, slanderer, from Greek, διαβάλλειν to slander, διά- across, through + βάλλειν to hurl, probably akin to the Sanskrit gurate he lifts up. In the New Testament, Satan occurs more than 30 times in passages alongside diábolos, in mainstream Judaism there is no concept of a devil as in mainstream Christianity or Islam. Texts make no direct link between the serpent that tempts Eve in the Garden of Eden in Genesis and the references to Satan are in Zechariah. For the Hasidim of the century, ha-satan was Baal Davar. In the Book of Wisdom, the devil is represented as the one who brought death into the world, a similar story is found in 1 Enoch, however, in that book, the leader of the Grigori is called Semjâzâ. In the apocryphal literature, Satan rules over a host of angels, mastema, who induced God to test Abraham through the sacrifice of Isaac, is identical with Satan in both name and nature. The Book of Enoch contains references to Sathariel, thought also to be Sataniel and Satanel, the similar spellings mirror that of his angelic brethren Michael, Raphael, Uriel and Gabriel, previous to his expulsion from Heaven. In mainstream Christianity the devil is usually referred to as Satan, some modern Christians consider the devil to be an angel who, along with one-third of the angelic host rebelled against God and has consequently been condemned to the Lake of Fire. He is described as hating all humanity, opposing God, spreading lies, other modern Christians consider the devil in the Bible to refer figuratively to human sin and temptation and to any immoral human system. Satan is often identified as the serpent who convinced Eve to eat the fruit, thus. He is also identified as the dragon in the Book of Revelation, beelzebub is originally the name of a Philistine god but is also used in the New Testament as a synonym for Satan. A corrupted version, Belzeboub, appears in The Divine Comedy, in Islam the Devil is referred to as Iblis or sometimes the Shaytan. Etymologically, Iblis means the desperate in Arabic, thus, the name Iblis can be seen as a sobriquet given to Shaitan after falling from Grace. The primary characteristic of the Devil, besides hubris, is that he has no other than the power to cast evil suggestions into the hearts of men and women. He was of the jinn and departed from the command of his Lord, then will you take him and his descendants as allies other than Me while they are enemies to you

2.
Folio
–
The term folio, from the Latin folium, has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing. It is firstly a term for a method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once. Secondly, it is a term for a sheet, leaf or page in manuscripts and old books, and thirdly, an approximate term for the size of a book. Each leaf of a folio book thus is one half the size of the original sheet, ordinarily, additional printed folio sheets would be inserted inside one another to form a group or gathering of leaves prior to binding the book. Means the first side of the 26th leaf in a book, other common book formats are quarto and octavo, which are both also printing formats, involving two and three folds in the sheet respectively. Famous folios include the Gutenberg Bible, printed in about 1455, each leaf of a folio book thus is one half the size of the original sheet. This contrasts with a quarto, folding each sheet twice, and octavo, there are variations in how folios are produced. For example, bibliographers call a book printed as a folio, but bound in gatherings of 8 leaves each, a folio in 8s. The Gutenberg Bible was printed in about 1455 as a folio, in four pages of text were printed on each sheet of paper. The page size is 12 x 17.5 inches, a folio size. Several such folded conjugate pairs of leaves were inserted inside one another to produce the sections or gatherings, Shakespeares First Folio edition is printed as a folio and has a page height of 12.5 inches, making it a rather small folio size. Folios were a common format of books printed in the period, although the earliest printed book. In the discussion of manuscripts, a means a leaf with two pages, the recto being the first the reader encounters, and the verso the second. When this page is turned over f1 v. is on the left and f2 r. on the right of the opening, in the discussion of two-columned manuscripts, a/b/c/d can denote the left and right-hand columns of recto and verso pages. In the discussion of three-columned manuscripts, notation may make use of folio number + recto/verso + column a/b/c. The actual size of a folio book depends on the size of the sheet of paper on which it was printed. Historically, printers used a range of such as, Double Elephant Folio, Atlas Folio, Elephant Folio, Royal Folio, Medium Folio. From the mid-nineteenth century, technology permitted the manufacture of large sheets or rolls of paper on which books were printed, as a result, it may be impossible to determine the actual format

3.
Recto and verso
–
The terms recto and verso refer to the text written on the front and back sides of a leaf of paper in a bound item such as a codex, book, broadsheet, or pamphlet. The terms are shortened from Latin rectō foliō and versō foliō, translating to on the side of the page and on the turned side of the page. The page faces themselves are called folium rectum and folium versum in Latin, in codicology, each physical sheet of a manuscript is numbered and the sides are referred to as rectum and folium versum, abbreviated as r and v respectively. Editions of manuscripts will thus mark the position of text in the manuscript in the form fol. 1r, sometimes with the r and v in superscript, as in 1r, or with a superscript o indicating the ablative recto, verso and this terminology has been standard since the beginnings of modern codicology in the 17th century. The use of the recto and verso are also used in the codicology of manuscripts written in right-to-left scripts, like Syriac, Arabic. However, as these scripts are written in the direction to the scripts witnessed in European codices. The reading order of each folio remains first recto, then verso regardless of writing direction, the distinction between recto and verso can be convenient in the annotation of scholarly books, particularly in bilingual edition translations. The recto and verso terms can also be employed for the front and back of a one-sheet artwork, a recto-verso drawing is a sheet with drawings on both sides, for example in a sketchbook—although usually in these cases there is no obvious primary side. Some works are planned to exploit being on two sides of the piece of paper, but usually the works are not intended to be considered together. Paper was relatively expensive in the past, indeed good drawing paper still is more expensive than normal paper. In some early printed books, it is the rather than the pages. Thus each folium carries a number on its recto side. This was also common in e. g. internal company reports in the 20th century. Book design Obverse and reverse in coins Page spread

4.
Codex Gigas
–
The Codex Gigas is the largest extant medieval manuscript in the world. It is also known as the Devils Bible because of an illustration of the devil on the inside. It is thought to have created in the early 12th century in the Benedictine monastery of Podlažice in Bohemia. It contains the Vulgate Bible as well as historical documents all written in Latin. The codex is bound in a folder covered with leather. At 92 cm tall,50 cm wide and 22 cm thick, weighing 74.8 kg, Codex Gigas is composed of 310 leaves of vellum allegedly made from the skins of 160 donkeys or perhaps calfskin. It initially contained 320 sheets, though some of these were subsequently removed and it is unknown who removed the pages or for what purpose but it seems likely that they contained the monastic rules of the Benedictines. Legend has it, that it was written by one scribe, according to legend, the Codex was created by Herman the Recluse in the Benedictine monastery of Podlažice near Chrudim in the Czech Republic. The monastery was destroyed sometime in the 15th century during the Hussite Revolution, records in the codex end in the year 1229. The codex was later pledged to the Cistercians Sedlec Monastery and then bought by the Benedictine monastery in Břevnov. From 1477 to 1593, it was kept in the library of a monastery in Broumov until it was taken to Prague in 1594 to form a part of the collections of the Emperor Rudolf II. At the end of the Thirty Years War in 1648, the collection was taken as war booty by the Swedish army. From 1649 to 2007, the manuscript was kept in the Swedish Royal Library in Stockholm, the site of its creation is marked by a maquette in the town museum of Chrast. On Friday,7 May 1697, a fire broke out at the royal castle in Stockholm. The codex was rescued from the flames by being out of a window. This damaged the binding and knocked loose some pages which are missing today. According to the vicar Johann Erichsons, the codex landed on, in September 2007, after 359 years, the Codex Gigas returned to Prague on loan from Sweden until January 2008, and was on display at the Czech National Library. A National Geographic documentary included interviews with experts who argued that certain evidence indicates the manuscript was indeed the work of just one scribe

5.
Abrahamic religions
–
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are the largest Abrahamic religions in terms of numbers of adherents. As of 2005, estimates classified 54% of the population as adherents of an Abrahamic religion, about 32% as adherents of other religions. Christianity claims 33% of the population, Islam has 21%, Judaism has 0. 2%. It has been suggested that the phrase, Abrahamic religion, may mean that all these religions come from one spiritual source. Christians refer to Abraham as a father in faith, there is an Islamic religious term, Millat Ibrahim, indicating that Islam sees itself as having practices tied to the traditions of Abraham. Jewish tradition claims descent from Abraham, and adherents follow his practices and it is the Islamic tradition that Muhammad, as an Arab, is descended from Abrahams son Ishmael. Jewish tradition also equates the descendants of Ishmael, Ishmaelites, with Arabs, as the descendants of Isaac by Jacob, who was also later known as Israel, are the Israelites. The Báb, regarded by Baháís as a predecessor to Baháulláh, was a Sayyid, or a descendant of Muhammad. Tradition also holds that Baháulláh is a descendant of Abraham through his third wife, while there is commonality among the religions, in large measure their shared ancestry is peripheral to their respective foundational beliefs and thus conceals crucial differences. For example, the common Christian beliefs of Incarnation, Trinity, there are key beliefs in both Islam and Judaism that are not shared by most of Christianity, and key beliefs of Islam, Christianity, and the Baháí Faith not shared by Judaism. Judaism regards itself as the religion of the descendants of Jacob and it has a strictly unitary view of God, and the central holy book for almost all branches is the Masoretic Text as elucidated in the Oral Torah. In the 19th century and 20th centuries Judaism developed a number of branches, of which the most significant are Orthodox, Conservative. Christianity began as a sect of Judaism in the Mediterranean Basin of the first century CE and evolved into a separate religion—Christianity—with distinctive beliefs, Jesus is the central figure of Christianity, considered by almost all denominations to be God the Son, one person of the Trinity. The Christian biblical canons are usually held to be the ultimate authority, over many centuries, Christianity divided into three main branches, dozens of significant denominations, and hundreds of smaller ones. Islam arose in the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century CE with a unitary view of God. Muslims hold the Quran to be the authority, as revealed and elucidated through the teachings and practices of a central. The Islamic faith consider all prophets and messengers from Adam through the messenger to carry the same Islamic monotheistic principles. Soon after its founding Islam split into two branches, each of which now have a number of denominations

6.
Christianity
–
Christianity is a Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who serves as the focal point for the religion. It is the worlds largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament. Christian theology is summarized in creeds such as the Apostles Creed and his incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection are often referred to as the gospel, meaning good news. The term gospel also refers to accounts of Jesuss life and teaching, four of which—Matthew, Mark, Luke. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion that began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the mid-1st century, following the Age of Discovery, Christianity spread to the Americas, Australasia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world through missionary work and colonization. Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, throughout its history, Christianity has weathered schisms and theological disputes that have resulted in many distinct churches and denominations. Worldwide, the three largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the denominations of Protestantism. There are many important differences of interpretation and opinion of the Bible, concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith. Many evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. The Baptists have been non-creedal in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another. Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church, the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, the Apostles Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists and this particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator, each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Most Christians accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the mentioned above. The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God, Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity, and hold that Jesus coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of the Messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept, Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin

7.
Islam
–
Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion which professes that there is only one and incomparable God and that Muhammad is the last messenger of God. It is the worlds second-largest religion and the major religion in the world, with over 1.7 billion followers or 23% of the global population. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and He has guided mankind through revealed scriptures, natural signs, and a line of prophets sealed by Muhammad. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the word of God. Muslims believe that Islam is the original, complete and universal version of a faith that was revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses. As for the Quran, Muslims consider it to be the unaltered, certain religious rites and customs are observed by the Muslims in their family and social life, while social responsibilities to parents, relatives, and neighbors have also been defined. Besides, the Quran and the sunnah of Muhammad prescribe a comprehensive body of moral guidelines for Muslims to be followed in their personal, social, political, Islam began in the early 7th century. Originating in Mecca, it spread in the Arabian Peninsula. The expansion of the Muslim world involved various caliphates and empires, traders, most Muslims are of one of two denominations, Sunni or Shia. Islam is the dominant religion in the Middle East, North Africa, sizable Muslim communities are also found in Horn of Africa, Europe, China, Russia, Mainland Southeast Asia, Philippines, Northern Borneo, Caucasus and the Americas. Converts and immigrant communities are found in almost every part of the world, Islam is a verbal noun originating from the triliteral root s-l-m which forms a large class of words mostly relating to concepts of wholeness, submission, safeness and peace. In a religious context it means voluntary submission to God, Islām is the verbal noun of Form IV of the root, and means submission or surrender. Muslim, the word for an adherent of Islam, is the active participle of the verb form. The word sometimes has connotations in its various occurrences in the Quran. In some verses, there is stress on the quality of Islam as a state, Whomsoever God desires to guide. Other verses connect Islām and dīn, Today, I have perfected your religion for you, I have completed My blessing upon you, still others describe Islam as an action of returning to God—more than just a verbal affirmation of faith. In the Hadith of Gabriel, islām is presented as one part of a triad that also includes imān, Islam was historically called Muhammadanism in Anglophone societies. This term has fallen out of use and is said to be offensive because it suggests that a human being rather than God is central to Muslims religion

8.
Fallen angel
–
A fallen angel is a wicked or rebellious angel that has been cast out of heaven. The term fallen angel does not appear in the Bible, but it is used of angels who sinned, of angels cast down to the earth in the War in Heaven, of Satan, demons, the term has become popular in fictional literature regarding angels. In the period preceding the composition of the New Testament, some sects of Judaism identified the sons of God of Genesis 6. Some scholars consider it most likely that this Jewish tradition of fallen angels predates, even in written form, lester L. Grabbe calls the story of the sexual intercourse of angels with women an old myth in Judaism. Indeed, until the mid-2nd century AD, Jewish writing can be taken to identify the sons of God of Gen 6,1 and 4 as angels, Rabbinic Judaism and Christian authorities rejected the tradition. Those who adopted the tradition viewed the sons of God as fallen angels who married human women and by unnatural union begot the Nephilim. The reference to heavenly beings called Watchers originates in Daniel 4, the Greek word for watchers is ἐγρήγοροι egrḗgoroi, pl. of egrḗgoros, literally wakeful. The Greek term was transcribed in the Jewish pseudepigraphon Second Book of Enoch as Grigori and these Watchers became enamored with human women, and had intercourse with them. The offspring of these unions, and the knowledge they were given, corrupted human beings, a number of apocryphal works, including 1 Enoch link this transgression with the Great Deluge. This fact was adopted by early Christianity, but abandoned by Rabbinic Judaism, during the period immediately before the rise of Christianity, the intercourse between these Watchers and human women was often seen as the first fall of the angels. The Slavonic Second Book of Enoch is problematic as evidence for Jewish belief as it has been heavily redacted by Christian transmission, the Grigori are identified with the Watchers of 1 Enoch. In The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypic Literature and Testaments edited by James H, and threw him out from the height with his angels, and he was flying in the air continuously above the bottomless. H. The Hebrew Bible personifies Satan, as Lucifer, as a character in three places, always inferior to Gods power, it portrays him as an accuser, a seducer. It uses the Hebrew word, which means adversary, elsewhere to speak of human opponents or some evil influence, in Christianity, Satan is often seen as the leader of the fallen angels. In Luke 10,18 Jesus says, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven, while the New Testament thus mentions Satan falling from Heaven, it never says that he was an angel, only that he masquerades as one, in 2 Corinthians 11,14. However, the concept of angels is not foreign to the New Testament, both 2 Peter 2,4 and Jude 1,6 refer to angels who have sinned against God. In the New Testament, Revelation 12, 3–14 speaks of a red dragon whose tail swept a third part of the stars of heaven. The fall of Lucifer finds its earliest identification with an angel in Origen, based on an interpretation of Isaiah 14, 1–17

9.
Jinn
–
Jinn, also romanized as djinn or anglicized as genies, are supernatural creatures in early Arabian and later Islamic mythology and theology. An individual member of the jinn is known as a jinni, djinni and they are mentioned frequently in the Quran and other Islamic texts. The jinn, humans, and angels make up the three known sapient creations of God, like human beings, the jinn can be good, evil, or neutrally benevolent and hence have free will like humans. Jaini were among various creatures believe among pre-Zoroastrian peoples of Persia, Jinn is an Arabic collective noun deriving from the Semitic root JNN, whose primary meaning is to hide. Some authors interpret the word to mean, literally, beings that are concealed from the senses, cognates include the Arabic majnūn, jannah, and janīn. Jinn is properly treated as a plural, with the singular being jinni, the anglicized form genie is a borrowing of the French génie, from the Latin genius, a guardian spirit of people and places in Roman religion. It first appeared in 18th-century translations of the Thousand and One Nights from the French, numerous mentions of jinn in the Quran and testimony of both pre-Islamic and Islamic literature indicate that the belief in spirits was prominent in pre-Islamic Bedouin religion. Julius Wellhausen has observed that such spirits were thought to inhabit desolate, dingy, and dark places, One had to protect oneself from them, but they were not the objects of a true cult. In Islamic theology jinn are said to be creatures with free will, made from fire by God as humans were made of clay. When jinns are called fire spirits it´s does not refer to their current nature, Jinn are mentioned 29 times in the Quran, Surah 72 is named after the jinn, and has a passage about them. Another surah mentions jinn in the last verse, the Quran also mentions that Muhammad was sent as a prophet to both humanity and the jinn, and that prophets and messengers were sent to both communities. Like humans, jinn will also be judged on the Day of Judgment, the social organization of the jinn community resembles that of humans, e. g. they have kings, courts of law, weddings, mourning rituals and practise religion. One common belief in Muslim belief lists five distinct orders of jinn — the Marid, the Ifrit, the Shaitan, the Ghul, and the Jann. A few traditions, divide jinn into three classes, those who have wings and fly in the air, those who resemble snakes and dogs, described them as creatures of different forms, some resembling vultures and snakes, others tall men in white garb. They may even appear as dragons, onagers, or any number of other animals, in addition to their animal forms, the jinn occasionally assume human form to mislead and destroy their human victims. Ibn Taymiyyah, a late medieval theologian whose writings would later become the source of Wahhabism, believed the jinn to be generally ignorant, untruthful, oppressive. In Sūrat Al-Jinn, verses 8–10, Allah narrates concerning the jinn how they touched or sought the limits of the sky and found it full of guards and shooting stars. Seven kings of the Jinn are traditionally associated with days of the week, the notion of a qarin is not universally accepted among all Muslims, but it is generally accepted that Shayṭān whispers in human minds, and he is assigned to each human being

10.
God in Abrahamic religions
–
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are sometimes called Abrahamic religions because they all accept the tradition that God revealed himself to the prophet Abraham. The Abrahamic God in this sense is the conception of God that remains a common attribute of all three traditions, God is conceived of as eternal, omnipotent, omniscient and as the creator of the universe. God is further held to have the properties of holiness, justice, omni-benevolence and omnipresence, the Baháí writings describe a monotheistic, personal, inaccessible, omniscient, omnipresent, imperishable, and almighty God who is the creator of all things in the universe. The existence of God and the universe is thought to be eternal, though transcendent and inaccessible directly, God is nevertheless seen as conscious of creation, with a will and purpose that is expressed through messengers termed Manifestations of God. The purpose of creation is for the created to have the capacity to know and love its creator, through such methods as prayer, reflection, and being of service to humankind. The Manifestations of God reflect divine attributes, which are creations of God made for the purpose of spiritual enlightenment, in the Baháí view, all physical beings reflect at least one of these attributes, and the human soul can potentially reflect all of them. The Baháí view rejects all pantheistic, anthropomorphic, and incarnationist beliefs in God, Most Christian denominations believe Jesus to be the incarnation of God as a human being, which is the main theological divergence with respect to Judaism and Islam. For most Christians, beliefs about God are enshrined in the doctrine of Trinitarianism, the doctrines were largely formalized at the Council of Nicea and are enshrined in the Nicaene creed. The Trinitarian view emphasizes that God has a will, and that God the Son has two wills, divine and human, though these are never in conflict but joined in the hypostatic union. A small minority of Christians, largely coming under the heading of Unitarianism, in the Mormonism represented by most of Mormon communities, God means Elohim, whereas Godhead means a council of three distinct gods, Elohim, Jehovah, and the Holy Spirit. The Father and Son have perfected, material bodies, while the Holy Spirit is a spirit and this conception differs from the traditional Christian Trinity, in Mormonism, the three persons are considered to be physically separate beings, or personages, but united in will and purpose. As such, the term Godhead differs from how it is used in traditional Christianity and this description of God represents the orthodoxy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, established early in the 19th century. In Islam, God is believed to be the real supreme being, all-powerful and all-knowing creator, sustainer, ordainer. Islam puts an emphasis on the conceptualization of God as strictly singular. He is unique and inherently one, all-merciful and omnipotent, according to the Quran there are 99 Names of God each of which evoke a distinct characteristic of God. All these names refer to Allah, the supreme and all-comprehensive divine Arabic name, among the 99 names of God, the most famous and most frequent of these names are the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful. Creation and ordering of the universe is seen as an act of mercy for which all creatures sing his glories and bear witness to his unity. According to the Quran, No vision can grasp Him, and he is above all comprehension, yet is acquainted with all things

11.
Demon
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A demon is a supernatural, mythological and often malevolent being prevalent in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology and folklore. The original Greek word daimon does not carry the negative connotation initially understood by implementation of the Koine δαιμόνιον, the Ancient Greek word δαίμων daimōn denotes a spirit or divine power, much like the Latin genius or numen. Daimōn most likely came from the Greek verb daiesthai, the Greek conception of a daimōn notably appears in the works of Plato, where it describes the divine inspiration of Socrates. To distinguish the classical Greek concept from its later Christian interpretation, the Greek terms do not have any connotations of evil or malevolence. In fact, εὐδαιμονία eudaimonia, means happiness, far into the Byzantine period Christians eyed their cities old pagan statuary as a seat of the demons presence. It was no longer beautiful, it was infested, the term had first acquired its negative connotations in the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, which drew on the mythology of ancient Semitic religions. This was then inherited by the Koine text of the New Testament, the Western medieval and neo-medieval conception of a demon derives seamlessly from the ambient popular culture of Late Antiquity. The Hellenistic daemon eventually came to include many Semitic and Near Eastern gods as evaluated by Christianity, the supposed existence of demons remains an important concept in many modern religions and occultist traditions. Demons are still feared largely due to their power to possess living creatures. In the contemporary Western occultist tradition, a demon is a metaphor for certain inner psychological processes. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, In Chaldean mythology the seven evil deities were known as shedu, storm-demons and they were represented as winged bulls, derived from the colossal bulls used as protective jinn of royal palaces. From Chaldea, the term shedu traveled to the Israelites, the writers of the Tanach applied the word as a dialogism to Canaanite deities. There are indications that demons in popular Hebrew mythology were believed to come from the nether world, various diseases and ailments were ascribed to them, particularly those affecting the brain and those of internal nature. Examples include catalepsy, headache, epilepsy and nightmares, there also existed a demon of blindness, Shabriri who rested on uncovered water at night and blinded those who drank from it. Demons supposedly entered the body and caused the disease while overwhelming or seizing the victim, to cure such diseases, it was necessary to draw out the evil demons by certain incantations and talismanic performances, at which the Essenes excelled. In mythology, there were few defences against Babylonian demons, the mythical mace Sharur had the power to slay demons such as Asag, a legendary gallu or edimmu of hideous strength. As referring to the existence or non-existence of shedim there are converse opinions in Judaism, there are practically nil roles assigned to demons in the Jewish Bible. In conclusion, Jews are not obligated to believe in the existence of shedim, the word shedim appears only in two places in the Tanakh

12.
Prosecutor
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The prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal trial against an individual accused of breaking the law. Prosecutors are typically lawyers who possess a law degree, and are recognized as legal professionals by the court in which they intend to represent society and they usually only become involved in a criminal case once a suspect has been identified and charges need to be filed. They are typically employed by an office of the government, with safeguards in place to such an office can successfully pursue the prosecution of government officials. Often, multiple offices exist in a country, especially those countries with federal governments where sovereignty has been bifurcated or devolved in some way. Since prosecutors are backed by the power of the state, they are subject to special professional responsibility rules in addition to those binding all lawyers. For example, in the United States, Rule 3.8 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct requires prosecutors to make timely disclosure to the defense of all evidence or information and that tends to negate the guilt of the accused or mitigates the offense. Not all U. S. states adopt the rules, however, U. S. Supreme Court cases. Typical sources of requirements imposed on prosecutors come from appellate court opinions, state or federal court rules. A DPP may be subject to varying degrees of control by the Attorney General, in Australia, the Offices of the Director of Public Prosecutions institute prosecutions for indictable offences on behalf of the Crown. More recent constitutions, such as South Africas, tend to guarantee the independence, in Canada, public prosecutors in most provinces are called Crown Attorney or Crown Counsel. They are generally appointed by the provincial Attorney-General, though Scots law is a mixed system, its civil law jurisdiction indicates its civil law heritage. Here, all prosecutions are carried out by Procurators Fiscal and Advocates Depute on behalf of the Lord Advocate, in very serious cases, a Procurator Fiscal, Advocate Depute or even the Lord Advocate, may take charge of a police investigation. Other remedies are open to a prosecutor in Scotland, including fines and non-court based interventions, such as rehabilitation. All prosecutions are handled within the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, Procurators fiscal will usually refer cases involving minors to Childrens Hearings, which are not courts of law, but a panel of lay members empowered to act in the interests of the child. In the United States, the director of an office may be known by any of several names depending on the jurisdiction. Prosecutors are most often chosen through local elections, and typically hire other attorneys as deputies or assistants to conduct most of the work of the office. United States Attorneys, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate, represent the government in federal court

13.
Yahweh
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Yahweh was the national god of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah. By the end of the Babylonian exile, the existence of foreign gods was denied, and Yahweh was proclaimed as the creator of the cosmos. The Israelites originated as Bronze Age Canaanites, but Yahweh was not initially a Canaanite god, in this case a plausible etymology for the name could be from the root HWY, which would yield the meaning he blows, appropriate to a weather divinity. There is considerable but not universal support for the view that the Egyptian inscriptions refer to Yahweh, the question that arises is how he made his way to the north. A widely accepted hypothesis is that traders brought Yahweh to Israel along the routes between Egypt and Canaan, the Kenite hypothesis, named after one of the groups involved. Israel emerges into the record in the last decades of the 13th century BCE, at the very end of the Late Bronze Age. The milieu from which Israelite religion emerged was accordingly Canaanite and he lived in a tent on a mountain from whose base originated all the fresh waters of the world, with the goddess Asherah as his consort. This pair made up the top tier of the Canaanite pantheon, the tier was made up of their children. Baals sphere was the thunderstorm with its life-giving rains, so that he was also a fertility god, below the seventy second-tier gods was a third tier made up of comparatively minor craftsman and trader deities, with a fourth and final tier of divine messengers and the like. He subdues the ancient gods, shatters the forces of old, so Israel lives in safety, untroubled is Jacobs abode. Your enemies shall come fawning to you, and you shall tread on their backs. After the 9th century BCE the tribes and chiefdoms of Iron Age I were replaced by ethnic nation states, Israel, Judah, Moab, Ammon and others, each with its national god, and all more or less equal. Thus Chemosh was the god of the Moabites, Milcom the god of the Ammonites, Qaus the god of the Edomites, the festivals thus celebrated Yahwehs salvation of Israel and Israels status as his holy people, although the earlier agricultural meaning was not entirely lost. Sacrifice was presumably complemented by the singing or recital of psalms, prayer played little role in official worship. Shiloh, Bethel, Gilgal, Mizpah, Ramah and Dan were also sites for festivals, sacrifices, the making of vows, private rituals. Yahweh-worship was famously aniconic, meaning that the god was not depicted by a statue or other image, pre-exilic Israel, like its neighbours, was polytheistic, and Israelite monotheism was the culmination of a unique set of historical circumstances. The original god of Israel was El, as the name demonstrates—its probable meaning is may El rule or some other sentence-form involving the name of El. Asherah, formerly the wife of El, was worshipped as Yahwehs consort, and various biblical passages indicate that her statues were kept in his temples in Jerusalem, Bethel, and Samaria

14.
Kingdom of Judah
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The Kingdom of Judah was an Iron Age kingdom of the Southern Levant. The Hebrew Bible depicts it as the successor to a United Monarchy, in the 10th and early 9th centuries BCE the territory of Judah appears to have been sparsely populated, limited to small rural settlements, most of them unfortified. Significant academic debate exists around the character of the Kingdom of Judah, archaeologists of the minimalist school doubt the extent of the Kingdom of Judah as depicted in the Bible. Around 1990–2010, an important group of archaeologists and biblical scholars formed the view that the actual Kingdom of Judah bore little resemblance to the portrait of a powerful monarchy. These scholars say the kingdom was no more than a tribal entity. Other archaeologists say that the identification of Khirbet Qeiyafa as an Israelite settlement is uncertain, the status of Jerusalem in the 10th century BCE is a major subject of debate. The oldest part of Jerusalem and its urban core is the City of David. However, unique structures such as the Stepped Stone Structure and the Large Stone Structure. According to the Hebrew Bible, the kingdom of Judah resulted from the break-up of the United kingdom of Israel after the tribes refused to accept Rehoboam. At first, only the tribe of Judah remained loyal to the house of David, the two kingdoms, Judah in the south and Israel in the north, coexisted uneasily after the split until the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel by Assyria in c. 722/721. The major theme of the Hebrew Bibles narrative is the loyalty of Judah, and especially its kings, to Yahweh, which it states is the God of Israel. Accordingly, all the kings of Israel and almost all the kings of Judah were bad, which in terms of Biblical narrative means that they failed to enforce monotheism. Of the good kings, Hezekiah is noted for his efforts at stamping out idolatry, for the first sixty years, the kings of Judah tried to re-establish their authority over the northern kingdom, and there was perpetual war between them. Israel and Judah were in a state of war throughout Rehoboams seventeen-year reign, Rehoboam built elaborate defenses and strongholds, along with fortified cities. In the fifth year of Rehoboams reign, Shishak, pharaoh of Egypt, brought a huge army, in the sack of Jerusalem, Rehoboam gave them all of the treasures out of the temple as a tribute and Judah became a vassal state of Egypt. Rehoboams son and successor, Abijah of Judah continued his fathers efforts to bring Israel under his control and he fought the Battle of Mount Zemaraim against Jeroboam of Israel and was victorious with a heavy loss of life on the Israel side. The Bible does not state whether Zerah was a pharaoh or a general of the army, the Ethiopians were pursued all the way to Gerar, in the coastal plain, where they stopped out of sheer exhaustion. The resulting peace kept Judah free from Egyptian incursions until the time of Josiah some centuries later, in his 36th year, Asa was confronted by Baasha of Israel, who built a fortress at Ramah on the border, less than ten miles from Jerusalem

15.
Intertestamental period
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It is known by members of the Protestant community as the 400 Silent Years because it is believed to have been a span where God revealed nothing new to his people. It is said many of the Deuterocanonical or Anagignoskomena books, accepted as scripture by Roman Catholicism. This is also the time when many pseudepigraphal works were produced, an understanding of the events of the intertestamental period provides context for the New Testament. Archived from the original on August 7,2015, what happened in the intertestamental period

16.
Zoroastrianism
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Ascribed to the teachings of the Iranian prophet Zoroaster, it exalts a deity of wisdom, Ahura Mazda, as its Supreme Being. Zoroastrianism was suppressed from the 7th century onwards following the Muslim conquest of Persia of 633-654, recent estimates place the current number of Zoroastrians at around 2.6 million, with most living in India and in Iran. Besides the Zoroastrian diaspora, the older Mithraic faith Yazdânism is still practised amongst Kurds, the religious philosophy of Zoroaster divided the early Iranian gods of Proto-Indo-Iranian tradition. The most important texts of the religion are those of the Avesta, in Zoroastrianism, the creator Ahura Mazda, through the Spenta Mainyu is an all-good father of Asha, in opposition to Druj and no evil originates from him. He and his works are evident to humanity through the six primary Amesha Spentas, Spenta Mainyu adjoined unto truth oppose the Spirits opposite, Angra Mainyu and its forces born of Akəm Manah. In Zoroastrianism, the purpose in life is to be among those who renew the world. to make the progress towards perfection. Its basic maxims include, Humata, Hukhta, Huvarshta, which mean, Good Thoughts, Good Words, there is only one path and that is the path of Truth. Do the right thing because it is the thing to do. The full name by which Zoroaster addressed the deity is, Ahura, The Lord Creator and he proclaimed that there is only one God, the singularly creative and sustaining force of the Universe. He also stated that human beings are given a right of choice, Zoroasters teachings focused on responsibility, and did not introduce a devil per se. The contesting force to Ahura Mazda was called Angra Mainyu, or angry spirit, post-Zoroastrian scripture introduced the concept of Ahriman, the Devil, which was effectively a personification of Angra Mainyu. The name Zoroaster is a Greek rendering of the name Zarathustra and he is known as Zartosht and Zardosht in Persian and Zaratosht in Gujarati. The Zoroastrian name of the religion is Mazdayasna, which combines Mazda- with the Avestan language word yasna, meaning worship, in English, an adherent of the faith is commonly called a Zoroastrian or a Zarathustrian. An older expression still used today is Behdin, meaning The best Religion | Beh < Middle Persian Weh + Din < Middle Persian dēn < Avestan Daēnā. In Zoroastrian liturgy the term is used as a title for an individual who has formally inducted into the religion in a Navjote ceremony. The term Mazdaism /ˈmæzdə. ɪzəm/ is a typical 19th century construct, taking Mazda- from the name Ahura Mazda, the March 2001 draft edition of the Oxford English Dictionary also records an alternate form, Mazdeism, perhaps derived from the French Mazdéisme, which first appeared in 1871. In older English sources, the terms Gheber and Gueber were used to refer to Zoroastrians, however, Zoroastrian philosophy is identified as having been known to Italian Renaissance Europe through an image of Zoroaster in Raphaels School of Athens by Giorgio Vasari in 1550. The Oxford English Dictionary records use of the term Zoroastrianism in 1874 in Archibald Sayces Principles of Comparative Philology, Zoroastrians believe that there is one universal, transcendent, supreme god, Ahura Mazda, or the Wise Lord

17.
Angra Mainyu
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Angra Mainyu is the Avestan-language name of Zoroastrianisms hypostasis of the destructive spirit. The Middle Persian equivalent is Ahriman, Avestan angra mainyu seems to have been an original conception of Zoroasters. In the Gathas, which are the oldest texts of Zoroastrianism and are attributed to the prophet himself, in the one instance in these hymns where the two words appear together, the concept spoken of is that of a mainyu that is angra. In this single instance—in Yasna 45. 2—the more bounteous of the spirits twain declares angra mainyu to be its absolute antithesis, a similar statement occurs in Yasna 30.3, where the antithesis is however aka mainyu, aka being the Avestan language word for evil. Hence, aka mainyu is the spirit or evil mind or evil thought, as contrasted with spenta mainyu, the bounteous spirit with which Ahura Mazda conceived of creation. The aka mainyu epithet recurs in Yasna 32.5, when the principle is identified with the daevas that deceive humankind, in Yasna 32.3, these daevas are identified as the offspring, not of Angra Mainyu, but of akem manah, evil thinking. A few verses earlier it is however the daebaaman, deceiver—not otherwise identified, in Yasna 32.13, the abode of the wicked is not the abode of Angra Mainyu, but the abode of the same worst thinking. One would have expected to reign in hell, since he had created death and how, at the end, Yasna 19.15 recalls that Ahura Mazdas recital of the Ahuna Vairya invocation puts Angra Mainyu in a stupor. In Yasna 9.8, Angra Mainyu creates Aži Dahaka, in Yasht 13, the Fravashis defuse Angra Mainyus plans to dry up the earth, and in Yasht 8.44 Angra Mainyu battles but cannot defeat Tishtrya and so prevent the rains. In Vendidad 19, Angra Mainyu urges Zoroaster to turn from the religion by promising him sovereignty of the world. On being rejected, Angra Mainyu assails the prophet with legions of demons, in Yasht 19.96, a verse that reflects a Gathic injunction, Angra Mainyu will be vanquished and Ahura Mazda will ultimately prevail. In Yasht 19. 46ff, Angra Mainyu and Spenta Mainyu battle for possession of khvaraenah, Yasht 15.43 assigns Angra Mainyu to the nether world, a world of darkness. So also Vendidad 19.47, but other passages in the chapter have him dwelling in the region of the daevas. There, Angra Mainyu is the daevanam daevo, daeva of daevas or chief of the daevas, the superlative daevo. taema is however assigned to the demon Paitisha. In an enumeration of the daevas in Vendidad 1.43, Angra Mainyu appears first, nowhere is Angra Mainyu said to be the creator of the daevas or their father. Zurvanism was a branch of Zoroastrianism that sought to resolve the dilemma of the spirits of Yasna 30.3. The resolution, which developed out of the contact with Chaldea, was to have both Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu as twin sons of the First Principle Time. Zurvanism was strongly criticized as a heresy during the Sassanid period of Iranian history, although the monist doctrine is not attested after the 10th century, some Zurvanite features are nonetheless still evident in present-day Zoroastrianism

18.
Biblical apocrypha
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Some Christian Churches include some or all of the same texts within the body of their version of the Old Testament. Although the term apocrypha had been in use since the 5th century, to this date, the Apocrypha is included in the lectionaries of Anglican and Lutheran Churches. Today, English Bibles with the Apocrypha are becoming popular again. Jerome completed his version of the Bible, the Latin Vulgate, in the Middle Ages the Vulgate became the de facto standard version of the Bible in the West. The Vulgate manuscripts included prologues that Jerome clearly identified certain books of the Vulgate Old Testament as apocryphal or non-canonical. Wisdom, therefore, which bears the name of Solomon, and the book of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, and Judith, and Tobias. The first book of Maccabees I have found to be Hebrew, in the prologue to Esdras he mentions 3 and 4 Esdras as being apocrypha. In his prologue to the books of Solomon, he says, Also included is the book of the model of virtue Jesus son of Sirach, the second was never among the Hebrews, the very style of which reeks of Greek eloquence. And none of the ancient scribes affirm this one is of Philo Judaeus and he mentions the book of Baruch in his prologue to the Jeremias and does not explicitly refer to it as apocryphal, but he does mention that it is neither read nor held among the Hebrews. In his prologue to the Judith he mentions that among the Hebrews, the authority came into contention, according to Michael Barber, although Jerome was once suspicious of the apocrypha, he later viewed them as Scripture as shown in his epistles. Barber cites Jeromes letter to Eustochium, in which Jerome quotes Sirach 13,2, elsewhere Jerome also refers to Baruch, the Story of Susannah and Wisdom as scripture. Apocrypha are well attested in surviving manuscripts of the Christian Bible and this famous edition of the Vulgate was published in 1455. The Prayer of Manasses was located after the Books of Chronicles, and 3 and 4 Esdras followed 2 Esdras, martin Luther translated the Bible into German during the early part of the 16th century, first releasing a complete Bible in 1534. His Bible was the first major edition to have a section called Apocrypha. Books and portions of books not found in the Masoretic Text of Judaism were moved out of the body of the Old Testament to this section, Luther placed these books between the Old and New Testaments. For this reason, these works are known as inter-testamental books. The books 1 and 2 Esdras were omitted entirely, Luther was making a polemical point about the canonicity of these books. Although his statement was controversial in his day, Jerome was later titled a Doctor of the Church and he did not put them in a separate named section, but he did move them to the end of his New Testament

19.
Book of Jubilees
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Jubilees is considered one of the pseudepigrapha by Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Churches. The text was also utilized by the community that originally collected the Dead Sea Scrolls, no complete Hebrew, Greek or Latin version is known to have survived. The chronology given in Jubilees is based on multiples of seven, there is also a preserved fragment of a Latin translation of the Greek that contains about a quarter of the whole work. The Ethiopic texts, now numbering twenty-seven, are the basis for translations into English. Passages in the texts of Jubilees that are parallel to verses in Genesis do not directly reproduce either of the two surviving manuscript traditions. Consequently, even before the Qumran discoveries, R. H. However, although the Pre-Masoretic text may have indeed been authoritative back then, arguments can be made for and against this concept. Between 1947 and 1956 approximately 15 Jubilees scrolls were found in five caves at Qumran, the large quantity of manuscripts indicates that Jubilees was widely used at Qumran. A comparison of the Qumran texts with the Ethiopic version, performed by James VanderKam, found that the Ethiopic was in most respects an accurate, the first biblical scholar to propose an origin for Jubilees was Robert Henry Charles. Charles proposed the author of Jubilees may have been a Pharisee, However, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran in 1947, Charles Pharisaic hypothesis of the origin of Jubilees has been almost completely abandoned. The dating of Jubilees has been problematic for biblical scholars, while the oldest extant copies of Jubilees can be assigned on the basis of the handwriting to about 100 BC, there is much evidence to suggest Jubilees was written prior to this date. But Jubilees could not have written very long prior. The Animal Apocalypse pretends to predict the Maccabean Revolt and is dated to that time. The direction of dependence has been controversial, but the consensus since 2008 has been that the Animal Apocalypse was first, as a result, general reference works such as the Oxford Annotated Bible and the Mercer Bible Dictionary conclude the work can be dated to 160–150 BC. The Hasmoneans adopted Jubilees immediately, and it became a source for the Aramaic Levi Document, Jubilees remained a point of reference for priestly circles, and the Temple Scroll and Epistle of Enoch are based on Jubilees. It is the source for certain of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, there is no official record of it in Pharisaic or Rabbinic sources, and it was among several books that the Sanhedrin and Rabbi Akiva left out of the canon they established in the late first century. Sub rosa, many of the traditions which Jubilees includes for the first time are echoed in later Jewish sources, the sole exception within Judaism, the Beta Israel Jews formerly of Ethiopia, regard the Geez text as canonical. Some Early Church Fathers evidently held the book of Jubilees was in high regard, the Book of Jubilees had great influence on the formation of Islam. In the Book of Jubilees there is the same concept of revelation as in Islam, Gods words

20.
Watcher (angel)
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Watcher is a term used in connection with biblical angels. Watcher occurs in both plural and singular forms in the Book of Daniel, where reference is made to their holiness, the apocryphal Books of Enoch refer to both good and bad Watchers, with a primary focus on the rebellious ones. In the Book of Daniel 4,13,17,23 there are three references to the class of watcher, holy one, the term is introduced by Nebuchadnezzar who says he saw a watcher, a holy one come down from heaven. Lutheran Protestant reformer Johann Wigand viewed the watcher in Nebuchadnezzars dream as either God himself and he promoted Trinitarian thinking by linking verse 17 with verse 24. In the Books of Enoch, the first Book of Enoch devotes much of its attention to the fall of the Watchers, the Second Book of Enoch addresses the Watchers who are in fifth heaven where the fall took place. The Third Book of Enoch gives attention to the unfallen Watchers, the use of the term Watchers is common in the Book of Enoch. The Book of the Watchers occurs in the Aramaic fragments with the phrase irin we-qadishin, Watchers and Holy Ones, the Aramaic irin watchers is rendered as angel in the Greek and Ethiopian translations, although the usual Aramaic term for angel malakha does not occur in Aramaic Enoch. The dating of this section of 1 Enoch is around 2nd–1st century BC and this book is based on one interpretation of the Sons of God passage in Genesis 6, according to which angels married with human females, giving rise to a race of hybrids known as the Nephilim. In the Book of Enoch, the Watchers are angels dispatched to Earth to watch over the humans and they soon begin to lust for human women and, at the prodding of their leader Samyaza, defect en masse to illicitly instruct humanity and procreate among them. The offspring of these unions are the Nephilim, savage giants who pillage the earth, eventually God allows a Great Flood to rid the earth of the Nephilim, but first sends Uriel to warn Noah so as not to eradicate the human race. The Watchers are bound in the valleys of the Earth until Judgment Day, the chiefs of tens, listed in the Book of Enoch, are as follows,7. These are their chiefs of tens, the book of Enoch also lists leaders of the 200 fallen angels who married and commenced in unnatural union with human women, and who taught forbidden knowledge. Some are also listed in Book of Raziel, the Zohar, araqiel taught humans the signs of the earth. Armaros in Enoch I taught men the resolving of enchantments, Azazel taught men to make knives, swords, shields, and how to devise ornaments and cosmetics. Gadreel taught the art of cosmetics, the use of weapons, bezaliel mentioned in Enoch I, left out of most translations because of damaged manuscripts and problematic transmission of the text. Chazaqiel taught men the signs of the clouds, kokabiel, In the Book of Raziel he is a high-ranking, holy angel. In Enoch I, he is a fallen Watcher, resident of the nether realms, among other duties, he instructs his fellows in astrology. Penemue taught mankind the art of writing ink and paper, and taught the children of men the bitter and the sweet

21.
Synoptic Gospels
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The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are referred to as the Synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in a similar sequence and in similar wording. They stand in contrast to John, whose content is comparatively distinct, the term synoptic comes via Latin from the Greek σύνοψις, synopsis, i. e. This strong parallelism among the three gospels in content, arrangement, and specific language is attributed to literary interdependence. Broadly speaking, the gospels are similar to John, all are composed in Koine Greek, have a similar length. In content and in wording, though, the synoptics diverge widely from John but have a deal in common with each other. Though each gospel includes some material, the majority of Mark and roughly half of Matthew and Luke coincide in content, in much the same sequence. This common material is termed the triple tradition and this stands in contrast to the material found in only two of the gospels, which is much more variable in order. The classification of text as belonging to the tradition is not always definitive. For example, Matthew and Mark report the cursing of the fig tree, clearly a single incident, despite some differences of wording. Searching Luke, however, we find only the parable of the fig tree. Some would say that Luke has extensively adapted an element of the triple tradition, an illustrative example of the three texts in parallel is the healing of the leper, More than half the wording in this passage is identical. Just as interesting, though, is that each gospel includes words absent in the two and omits something included by the other two. It has been observed that the tradition itself constitutes a complete gospel quite similar to the shortest gospel. Mark, unlike Matthew and Luke, adds little to the triple tradition. Pericopae unique to Mark are scarce, notably two healings involving saliva and the naked runaway, Marks additions within the triple tradition tend to be explanatory elaborations or Aramaisms. The pericopae Mark shares with only Luke are also few, the Capernaum exorcism and departure from Capernaum, the strange exorcist. A greater number, but still not many, are shared with only Matthew, most notably the so-called Great Omission from Luke of Mk 6, most scholars take these observations as a strong clue to the literary relationship among the synoptics and Marks special place in that relationship. The hypothesis favored by most experts is Marcan priority, that Mark was composed first, a leading alternative hypothesis is Marcan posteriority, that Mark was formed primarily by extracting what Matthew and Luke shared in common

22.
Temptation of Christ
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The temptation of Christ is detailed in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. According to these texts, after being baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus fasted for forty days, during this time, Satan appeared to Jesus and tried to tempt him. Jesus having refused each temptation, the devil departed and Jesus returned to Galilee. Temptations were hedonism, egoism and materialism, John the Evangelist in his epistle calls these temptations in world as lust of eyes, lust of body and pride of life. Temptations aim to mislead and pervert three main characteristics, to think, wish and feel which are inside mind, soul. These are related with transcendentals or ultimate ideals in three areas of interests, science, arts and religion. Christians are called to search for divine virtues, faith, hope and love that relate directly to God who Himself is Truth, Beauty. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews also refers to Jesus having been tempted in every way that we are, marks account is very brief, merely noting the event. Matthew and Luke describe the temptations by recounting the details of the conversations between Jesus and Satan. Since the elements that are in Matthew and Luke but not in Mark are mostly pairs of rather than detailed narration. The temptation of Christ is not explicitly mentioned in the Gospel of John but in this gospel Jesus does refer to the devil, discussion of the literary genre includes whether what is represented is a history, a parable, a myth, or compound of various genres. This relates to the reality of the encounter, sometimes the temptation narrative is taken as a parable, reading that Jesus in his ministry told this narrative to audiences relating his inner experience in the form of a parable. Or it is autobiographical, regarding what sort of Messiah Jesus intended to be, the debate on the literality of the temptations goes back at least to the discussion of George Benson and Hugh Farmer. A traditional Catholic understanding is that the temptation of Christ was a literal and physical event, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, The Gospels speak of a time of solitude for Jesus in the desert immediately after his baptism by John. Driven by the Spirit into the desert, Jesus remains there for forty days without eating, he lives among wild beasts, at the end of this time Satan tempts him three times, seeking to compromise his filial attitude toward God. Jesus rebuffs these attacks, which recapitulate the temptations of Adam in Paradise and of Israel in the desert, the temptation in the desert shows Jesus, the humble Messiah, who triumphs over Satan by his total adherence to the plan of salvation willed by the Father. The account of Matthew uses language from the Old Testament, the imagery would be familiar to Matthews contemporary readers. In the Septuagint Greek version of Zechariah 3 the name Iesous, Lukes account is similar, though his inversion of the second and third temptations represents a more natural geographic movement, from the wilderness to the temple

23.
New Testament
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The New Testament is the second major part of the Christian biblical canon, the first part being the Old Testament, based on the Hebrew Bible. The New Testament discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christianity, Christians regard both the Old and New Testaments together as sacred scripture. The New Testament has frequently accompanied the spread of Christianity around the world and it reflects and serves as a source for Christian theology and morality. Both extended readings and phrases directly from the New Testament are also incorporated into the various Christian liturgies, the New Testament has influenced religious, philosophical, and political movements in Christendom and left an indelible mark on literature, art, and music. In almost all Christian traditions today, the New Testament consists of 27 books, John A. T. Robinson, Dan Wallace, and William F. Albright dated all the books of the New Testament before 70 AD. Others give a date of 80 AD, or at 96 AD. Over time, some disputed books, such as the Book of Revelation, other works earlier held to be Scripture, such as 1 Clement, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Diatessaron, were excluded from the New Testament. However, the canon of the New Testament, at least since Late Antiquity, has been almost universally recognized within Christianity. The term new testament, or new covenant first occurs in Jeremiah 31,31, the same Greek phrase for new covenant is found elsewhere in the New Testament. Modern English, like Latin, distinguishes testament and covenant as alternative translations, John Wycliffes 1395 version is a translation of the Latin Vulgate and so follows different terms in Jeremiah and Hebrews, Lo. Days shall come, saith the Lord, and I shall make a new covenant with the house of Israel, for he reproving him saith, Lo. Days come, saith the Lord, when I shall establish a new testament on the house of Israel, use of the term New Testament to describe a collection of first and second-century Christian Greek Scriptures can be traced back to Tertullian. In Against Marcion, written circa 208 AD, he writes of the Divine Word, by the 4th century, the existence—even if not the exact contents—of both an Old and New Testament had been established. Lactantius, a 3rd–4th century Christian author wrote in his early-4th-century Latin Institutiones Divinae and that which preceded the advent and passion of Christ—that is, the law and the prophets—is called the Old, but those things which were written after His resurrection are named the New Testament. The canon of the New Testament is the collection of books that most Christians regard as divinely inspired, several of these writings sought to extend, interpret, and apply apostolic teaching to meet the needs of Christians in a given locality. The book order is the same in the Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, the Slavonic, Armenian and Ethiopian traditions have different New Testament book orders. Each of the four gospels in the New Testament narrates the life, death, the word gospel derives from the Old English gōd-spell, meaning good news or glad tidings. The gospel was considered the good news of the coming Kingdom of Messiah, and the redemption through the life and death of Jesus, Gospel is a calque of the Greek word εὐαγγέλιον, euangelion

24.
Book of Revelation
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Its title is derived from the first word of the text, written in Koine Greek, apokalypsis, meaning unveiling or revelation. The Book of Revelation is the apocalyptic document in the New Testament canon. The author names himself in the text as John, but his identity remains a point of academic debate. Modern scholarship generally takes a different view, and many consider that nothing can be known about the author except that he was a Christian prophet, Some modern scholars characterise Revelations author as a putative figure whom they call John of Patmos. The bulk of traditional sources date the book to the reign of the emperor Domitian, the book spans three literary genres, the epistolary, the apocalyptic, and the prophetic. It begins with John, on the island of Patmos in the Aegean and he then describes a series of prophetic visions, including figures such as the Whore of Babylon and the Beast, culminating in the Second Coming of Jesus. The title is taken from the first word of the book in Koine Greek, ἀποκάλυψις apokalypsis, the author names himself as John, but it is currently considered unlikely that the author of Revelation was also the author of the Gospel of John. All that is known is that this John was a Jewish Christian prophet, probably belonging to a group of such prophets and his precise identity remains unknown, and modern scholarship commonly refers to him as John of Patmos. 70 AD is the date of writing according to Martha Himmelfarb in the recently published Blackwell series. Revelation is an apocalyptic prophecy with an epistolary introduction addressed to seven churches in the Roman province of Asia, Apocalypse means the revealing of divine mysteries, John is to write down what is revealed and send it to the seven churches. The entire book constitutes the letter—the letters to the seven churches are introductions to the rest of the book. While the dominant genre is apocalyptic, the author himself as a Christian prophet, Revelation uses the word in various forms twenty-one times. The predominant view is that Revelation alludes to the Old Testament although it is difficult among scholars to agree on the number of allusions or the allusions themselves. Revelation rarely quotes directly from the Old Testament, almost every verse alludes to or echoes older scriptures. Over half of the stem from Daniel, Ezekiel, Psalms. He very frequently combines multiple references, and again the style makes it impossible to be certain to what extent he did so consciously. Revelation was the last book accepted into the Christian biblical canon and it was considered tainted because the heretical sect of the Montanists relied on it and doubts were raised over its Jewishness and authorship. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, disciple of Origen wrote that the Book of Revelation could have been written by Cerinthus although he himself did not adopt the view that Cerinthus was the writer and he regarded the Apocalypse as the work of an inspired man but not of an Apostle

25.
Serpents in the Bible
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Serpents are referred to in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The symbol of a serpent or snake played important roles in religious and cultural life of ancient Egypt, Canaan, Mesopotamia, the serpent was a symbol of evil power and chaos from the underworld as well as a symbol of fertility, life and healing. Nachash, Hebrew for snake, is associated with divination. In the Hebrew Bible, Nachash occurs in the Torah to identify the serpent in Eden, throughout the Hebrew Bible, it is also used in conjunction with saraph to describe vicious serpents in the wilderness. Tanniyn, a form of dragon-monster, also occurs throughout the Hebrew Bible, in the Book of Exodus, the staffs of Moses and Aaron are turned into serpents, a nachash for Moses, a tanniyn for Aaron. In the New Testament, the Book of Revelation makes use of ancient serpent, the serpent is most often identified with the hubristic Satan, and sometimes with Lilith. The story of the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man represents a tradition among the Abrahamic peoples, with a more or less symbolical of certain moral. In one of the oldest stories ever written, the Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh loses the power of immortality, the serpent was a widespread figure in the mythology of the Ancient Near East. In the surrounding region, a late Bronze Age Hittite shrine in northern Syria contained a statue of a god holding a serpent in one hand. In sixth-century Babylon, a pair of bronze serpents flanked each of the four doorways of the temple of Esagila, at the tell of Tepe Gawra, at least seventeen Early Bronze Age Assyrian bronze serpents were recovered. The Sumerian fertility god Ningizzida was sometimes depicted as a serpent with a head, eventually becoming a god of healing. In the Jewish Bible, the Book of Genesis refers to a serpent who triggered the expulsion of Adam, Serpent is also used to describe sea monsters. Examples of these identifications are in the Book of Isaiah where a reference is made to a serpent-like Leviathan, Serpent figuratively describes biblical places such as Egypt, and the city of Dan. The prophet Jeremiah also compares the King of Babylon to a serpent, the Hebrew word nahash is used to identify the serpent that appears in Genesis 3,1, in the Garden of Eden. In Genesis, the serpent is portrayed as a creature or trickster, who promotes as good what God had forbidden. The serpent has the ability to speak and to reason, Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. There is no indication in the Book of Genesis that the serpent was a deity in its own right, although it is one of only two cases of animals that talk in the Pentateuch. God placed Adam in the Garden to tend it and warned Adam not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the serpent tempts Eve to eat of the Tree, but Eve tells the serpent what God had said

26.
Michael (archangel)
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Michael is an archangel in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran traditions, he is called Saint Michael the Archangel, in the Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox traditions, he is called Taxiarch Archangel Michael or simply Archangel Michael. Michael is mentioned three times in the Book of Daniel, in the New Testament Michael leads Gods armies against Satans forces in the Book of Revelation, where during the war in heaven he defeats Satan. In the Epistle of Jude Michael is specifically referred to as the archangel Michael, by the 6th century, devotions to Archangel Michael were widespread both in the Eastern and Western Churches. Over time, teachings on Michael began to vary among Christian denominations, Michael is mentioned three times in the Hebrew Scriptures, all in the book of Daniel. The prophet Daniel experiences a vision after having undergone a period of fasting, Daniel 10, 13-21 describes Daniels vision of an angel who identifies Michael as the protector of Israel. At Daniel 12,1, Daniel is informed that Michael will arise during the time of the end, the Book of Revelation describes a war in heaven in which Michael, being stronger, defeats Satan. After the conflict, Satan is thrown to earth along with the fallen angels, in the Epistle of Jude 1,9, Michael is referred to as an archangel when he again confronts Satan. A reference to an archangel also appears in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians 4,16 and this archangel who heralds the second coming of Christ is not named, but is often associated with Michael. Michael, is one of the two mentioned in the Quran, alongside Jibreel. In the Quran, Michael is mentioned only, in Sura 2,98, Whoever is an enemy to God, and His angels and His messengers. Then, God is an enemy to the disbelievers, some Muslims believe that the reference in Sura 11,69 is Michael, one of the three angels who visited Abraham. Michaels enmity with Samael dates from the time when the latter was thrown down from heaven, Samael took hold of the wings of Michael, whom he wished to bring down with him in his fall, but Michael was saved by God. But appeal to Michael seems to have more common in ancient times. Thus Jeremiah is said to have addressed a prayer to him, the rabbis declare that Michael entered upon his role of defender at the time of the biblical patriarchs. Thus, according to Rabbi Eliezer ben Jacob, it was Michael who rescued Abraham from the furnace into which he had been thrown by Nimrod. It was Michael, the one that had escaped, who told Abraham that Lot had been taken captive, and he announced to Sarah that she would bear a son and he rescued Lot at the destruction of Sodom. It is said that Michael prevented Isaac from being sacrificed by his father by substituting a ram in his place, later Michael prevented Laban from harming Jacob

27.
Millennialism
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Premillennialism, in Christian eschatology, is the belief that Jesus will physically return to the earth to gather His saints before the Millennium, a literal thousand-year golden age of peace. This return is referred to as the Second Coming, the doctrine is called premillennialism because it holds that Jesus physical return to earth will occur prior to the inauguration of the Millennium. For the last century, the belief has been common in Evangelicalism according to surveys on this topic, Premillennialism is based upon a literal interpretation of Revelation 20, 1–6 in the New Testament, which describes Jesus reign in a period of a thousand years. It views this future age as a time of fulfillment for the hope of Gods people as given in the Old Testament. Post-millennialism, for example, agrees with premillennialism about the future reign of Christ. Postmillennialists hold to the view that the second coming will happen after the millennium, historically Christian premillennialism has also been referred to as chiliasm or millenarianism. The current religious term premillennialism did not come into use until the mid-19th century, the concept of a temporary earthly messianic kingdom at the Messiahs coming was not an invention of Christianity. Instead it was an interpretation developed within the apocalyptic literature of early Judaism. In Judaism during the Christian intertestamental period, there was a distinction between the current age and the “age to come”. The “age to come” was commonly viewed as a nationalistic Golden Age in which the hopes of the prophets would become a reality for the nation of Israel, on the surface, the biblical prophets revealed an “age to come” which was monolithic. Seemingly the prophets did not write of a two-phase eschaton consisting of a messianic age followed by an eternal state. However, that was the concept that some Jewish interpreters did derive from their exegesis and their conclusions are found in some of the literature and theology of early Judaism within the centuries both before and during the development of the Christian New Testament. This work likely dates to the early 2nd century and shows a schematization of the divine history divided into ten periods of time called “weeks. ”In the apocalypse. However, after the week, the temporary earthly messianic age begins. After the temporary messianic kingdom, the creation of the new heavens, Second Esdras likely dates from soon after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70. The apocryphal book was apparently an attempt to explain the difficulties associated with the destruction of Jerusalem, during one of the visions in the book, Ezra receives a revelation from the angel Uriel. The angel explains that prior to the last judgment, the Messiah will come, seven days after this cataclysmic event, the resurrection and the judgment will occur followed by the eternal state. The Jewish belief in a temporary messianic age continued during

28.
Devil in Christianity
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In mainstream Christianity, the Devil is a mythological figure and a fallen angel who rebelled against God. The devil is often identified as the serpent in the Garden of Eden and he is also identified as the accuser of Job, the tempter of the Gospels, Leviathan and the dragon in the Book of Revelation. In Christianity, the title Satan, the opposer, is a title of various entities, Satan later became the name of the personification of evil. Christian tradition and theology changed Satan from an appointed by God to test mens faith to Gods godlike fallen opponent. Traditionally, Christians have understood the devil to be the author of lies, however, the devil can go no further than the word of Christ the Logos allows, resulting in the problem of evil. Liberal Christianity often views the devil metaphorically and this is true of some Conservative Christian groups too, such as the Christadelphians and the Church of the Blessed Hope. Much of the lore of the devil is not biblical, instead. In Gods rebuke to the serpent, he tells it And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. Christian scriptures are often interpreted to identify the serpent with the Devil, the deuterocanonical Book of Wisdom says, But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world and they who are in his possession experience it. Christian teaching about the Satan, to whom God proposes his servant Job is that he appears in the court to challenge Job. This is one of two Old Testament passages, along with Zechariah 3, where Hebrew ha-Satan becomes Greek ho diabolos in the Greek Septuagint used by the early Christian church. Zechariahs vision of recently deceased Joshua the High Priest depicts a dispute in the throne room between Satan and the Angel of the Lord. Goulder views the vision as related to opposition from Sanballat the Horonite, when the Bible was translated into Latin, the name Lucifer appeared as a translation of Morning Star, or the planet Venus, in Isaiah 14,12. Isaiah 14, 1-23 is a passage concerned with the plight of Babylon and this is because the Babylonian king was considered to be of godly status and of symbolic divine parentage. At some point the reference to Lucifer was interpreted as a reference to the moment Satan was thrown from Heaven. And despite the clarity of the chapter as a whole, the 12th verse continues to be put forth as proof that Lucifer was the name of Satan before the fall, thus Lucifer became another name for Satan and has remained so, owing to popular tradition. The Hebrew Bible word for the devil, which was translated to Lucifer in English, is הילל. Later, for reasons, Christian demonologists appeared to designate Satan, Lucifer

29.
Book of Genesis
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The Book of Genesis is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. The basic narrative expresses the theme, God creates the world and appoints man as his regent. The new post-Flood world is also corrupt, God does not destroy it, instead calling one man, Abraham, to be the seed of its salvation. At Gods command Abraham descends from his home into the land of Canaan, given to him by God, Genesis ends with Israel in Egypt, ready for the coming of Moses and the Exodus. The narrative is punctuated by a series of covenants with God, the books author or authors appear to have structured it around ten toledot sections, but modern commentators see it in terms of a primeval history followed by the cycle of Patriarchal stories. In Judaism, the importance of Genesis centers on the covenants linking God to his chosen people. It is not clear, however, what this meant to the original authors, while the first is far shorter than the second, it sets out the basic themes and provides an interpretive key for understanding the entire book. The primeval history has a symmetrical structure hinging on chapters 6–9, God creates the world in six days and consecrates the seventh as a day of rest. God creates the first humans Adam and Eve and all the animals in the Garden of Eden but instructs them not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A talking serpent portrayed as a creature or trickster, entices Eve into eating it anyway. Eve bears two sons, Cain and Abel, Cain kills Abel after God accepts Abels offering but not Cains. Eve bears another son, Seth, to take Abels place, after many generations of Adam have passed from the lines of Cain and Seth, the world becomes corrupted by the sin of man and Nephilim, and God determines to wipe out mankind. First, he instructs the righteous Noah and his family to build a huge boat, then God sends a great flood to wipe out the rest of the world. When the waters recede, God promises that he not destroy the world a second time with water with the rainbow as the symbol of his promise. But upon seeing mankind cooperating to build a great tower city, God instructs Abram to travel from his home in Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan. Abrams name is changed to Abraham and that of his wife Sarai to Sarah, because Sarah is old, she tells Abraham to take her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar, as a second wife. God resolves to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for the sins of their people, Abraham protests and gets God to agree not to destroy the cities if 10 righteous men can be found. Angels save Abrahams nephew Lot and his family, but his wife back on the destruction against their command and is turned into a pillar of salt

30.
Christian art
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Christian art is sacred art which uses themes and imagery from Christianity. Images of Jesus and narrative scenes from the Life of Christ are the most common subjects, images of the Virgin Mary and saints are much rarer in Protestant art than that of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Christianity makes far wider use of images than related religions, in which representations are forbidden, such as Islam. However, there is also a history of aniconism in Christianity from various periods. Early Christian art survives from dates near the origins of Christianity, the oldest Christian sculptures are from sarcophagi, dating to the beginning of the 2nd century. The Orthodox Church of Constantinople, which enjoyed greater stability within the surviving Eastern Empire was key in commissioning imagery there and glorifying Christianity. As a stable Western European society emerged during the Middle Ages, during the development of Christian art in the Byzantine Empire, a more abstract aesthetic replaced the naturalism previously established in Hellenistic art. This new style was hieratic, meaning its primary purpose was to convey religious meaning rather than accurately render objects, realistic perspective, proportions, light and color were ignored in favor of geometric simplification of forms, reverse perspective and standardized conventions to portray individuals and events. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 brought an end to the highest quality Byzantine art, artists were commissioned more secular genres like portraits, landscape paintings and because of the revival of Neoplatonism, subjects from classical mythology. Occasionally, secular artists treated Christian themes — but only rarely was a Christian artist included in the historical canon. However many modern artists such as Eric Gill, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Jacob Epstein, Elizabeth Frink, salvador Dali is an artist who had also produced notable and popular artworks with Christian themes. Artists such as Makoto Fujimura have had significant influence both in sacred and secular arts, other notable artists include Larry D. Alexander and John August Swanson. Some writers, such as Gregory Wolfe, see this as part of a rebirth of Christian humanism, since the advent of printing, the sale of reproductions of pious works has been a major element of popular Christian culture. In the nineteenth century, this included genre painters such as Mihály Munkácsy, the invention of color lithography led to broad circulation of holy cards. Subjects often seen in Christian art include the following, see Life of Christ and Life of the Virgin for fuller lists of narrative scenes included in cycles, Grabar, André. Christian iconography, a study of its origins, the glory of Byzantium, art and culture of the Middle Byzantine era, A. D. 843-1261. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Living Church, May 4,2014, 8–11

31.
Pan (god)
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In Greek religion and mythology, Pan is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature of mountain wilds and rustic music, and companion of the nymphs. His name originates within the ancient Greek language, from the word paein, meaning to pasture and he has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr. With his homeland in rustic Arcadia, he is recognized as the god of fields, groves, and wooded glens, because of this, Pan is connected to fertility. The ancient Greeks also considered Pan to be the god of theatrical criticism, in the 18th and 19th centuries, Pan became a significant figure in the Romantic movement of western Europe and also in the 20th-century Neopagan movement. Many modern scholars consider Pan to be derived from the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European god *Péh2usōn, the Hindu god Pushan is believed to be a cognate of Pan. The connection between Pan and Pushan was first identified in 1924 by the German scholar Hermann Collitz, the name Pan is probably also a cognate with the Greek word πάειν, meaning to pasture, which shares an origin with the modern English word pasture. In his earliest appearance in literature, Pindars Pythian Ode iii,78, Pan is associated with a mother goddess, perhaps Rhea or Cybele, Pindar refers to virgins worshipping Cybele and Pan near the poets house in Boeotia. In some early sources such as Pindar, his father is Apollo via Penelope, Herodotus, Cicero, Apollodorus and Hyginus all make Hermes and Penelope his parents. Pausanias 8.12.5 records the story that Penelope had in fact been unfaithful to her husband, other sources report that Penelope slept with all 108 suitors in Odysseus absence, and gave birth to Pan as a result. This myth reflects the folk etymology that equates Pans name with the Greek word for all, in the mystery cults of the highly syncretic Hellenistic era, Pan is made cognate with Phanes/Protogonos, Zeus, Dionysus and Eros. Accounts of Pans genealogy are so varied that it must lie buried deep in mythic time, like other nature spirits, Pan appears to be older than the Olympians, if it is true that he gave Artemis her hunting dogs and taught the secret of prophecy to Apollo. Pan might be multiplied as the Pans or the Paniskoi, Kerenyi notes from scholia that Aeschylus in Rhesus distinguished between two Pans, one the son of Zeus and twin of Arcas, and one a son of Cronus. In the retinue of Dionysos, or in depictions of landscapes, there appeared not only a great Pan, but also little Pans, Paniskoi. The worship of Pan began in Arcadia which was always the seat of his worship. Arcadia was a district of people, culturally separated from other Greeks. Greek hunters used to scourge the statue of the god if they had been disappointed in the chase. Being a rustic god, Pan was not worshipped in temples or other built edifices and these are often referred to as the Cave of Pan. In the 4th century BC Pan was depicted on the coinage of Pantikapaion, the goat-god Aegipan was nurtured by Amalthea with the infant Zeus in Athens

32.
Poseidon
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Poseidon was one of the twelve Olympian deities of the pantheon in Greek mythology. His main domain was the ocean, and he is called the God of the Sea, additionally, he is referred to as Earth-Shaker due to his role in causing earthquakes, and has been called the tamer of horses. He is usually depicted as a male with curly hair. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology, both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon. According to some folklore, he was saved by his mother Rhea, who concealed him among a flock of lambs and pretended to have birth to a colt. There is a Homeric hymn to Poseidon, who was the protector of many Hellenic cities, according to the references from Plato in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias, the island of Atlantis was the chosen domain of Poseidon. The form Ποτειδάϝων appears in Corinth, the origins of the name Poseidon are unclear. Walter Burkert finds that the second element da- remains hopelessly ambiguous, another theory interprets the second element as related to the word *δᾶϝον dâwon, water, this would make *Posei-dawōn into the master of waters. There is also the possibility that the word has Pre-Greek origin, Plato in his dialogue Cratylus gives two alternative etymologies, either the sea restrained Poseidon when walking as a foot-bond, or he knew many things. If surviving Linear B clay tablets can be trusted, the name occurs with greater frequency than does di-u-ja. A feminine variant, po-se-de-ia, is found, indicating a lost consort goddess. Poseidon carries frequently the title wa-na-ka in Linear B inscriptions, as king of the underworld, the chthonic nature of Poseidon-Wanax is also indicated by his title E-ne-si-da-o-ne in Mycenean Knossos and Pylos, a powerful attribute. In the cave of Amnisos Enesidaon is related with the cult of Eileithyia and she was related with the annual birth of the divine child. During the Bronze Age, a goddess of nature, dominated both in Minoan and Mycenean cult, and Wanax was her companion in Mycenean cult. It is possible that Demeter appears as Da-ma-te in a Linear B inscription, in Linear B inscriptions found at Pylos, E-ne-si-da-o-ne is related with Poseidon, and Si-to Po-tini-ja is probably related with Demeter. Tablets from Pylos record sacrificial goods destined for the Two Queens, the Two Queens may be related with Demeter and Persephone, or their precursors, goddesses who were not associated with Poseidon in later periods. The violated Demeter was Demeter Erinys, in Arcadia, Demeters mare-form was worshiped into historical times. Her xoanon of Phigaleia shows how the local cult interpreted her, a Medusa type with a horses head with snaky hair, holding a dove and a dolphin, probably representing her power over air and water

33.
Bes
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Bes and its feminine counterpart Beset are an Ancient Egyptian deity worshipped as a protector of households, and in particular, of mothers and children and childbirth. Bes later came to be regarded as the defender of everything good, while past studies identified Bes as a Middle Kingdom import from Nubia, more recent research indicates that he was present in Egypt since the start of Old Kingdom. Mentions of Bes can be traced to pre-dynastic Nile Valley cultures, modern scholars such as James Romano claim that in its earliest inception Bes was a representation of a lion rearing up on its hind legs. After the Third Intermediate Period, Bes is often seen as just the head or the face, images of the deity were kept in homes and he was depicted quite differently from the other gods. Normally Egyptian gods were shown in profile, but instead Bes appeared in portrait, ithyphallic and he scared away demons from houses, so his statue was put up as a protector. Since he drove off evil, Bes also came to symbolize the good things in life - music, dance, many instances of Bes masks and costumes from the New Kingdom and later have been uncovered. These show considerable wear, thought to be too great for occasional use at festivals, in the New Kingdom, tattoos of Bes could be found on the thighs of dancers, musicians and servant girls. In the late 500s BC, images of Bes began to spread across the Persian Empire, images of Bes have been found at the Persian capital of Susa, and as far away as central Asia. Over time, the image of Bes became more Persian in style, as he was depicted wearing Persian clothes, the Balearic island of Ibiza derives its actual name from this god, brought along with the first Phoenician settlers 654 BC. These settlers, amazed at the lack of any sort of creatures on the island thought it to be the island of Bes. Bes is an important character in the books of the saga The Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan, Bes appears, as part of the delegation of Egyptian gods, in The Sandman, Season of Mists, by Neil Gaiman. Bes is a friend and helper to the heroes in Pyramid Scheme by Eric Flint and Dave Freer Statue of official Bes The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, ISBN 0-500-05120-8 The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, Ian Shaw. Dwarfs in Ancient Egypt and Greece

34.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period

35.
Christian theology
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Christian theology is the study of Christian belief and practice. Such study concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament, Christian theologians use biblical exegesis, rational analysis and argument. Systematic theology as a discipline of Christian theology formulates an orderly, rational and coherent account of the Christian faith, inherent to a system of theological thought is that a method is developed, one which can be applied both broadly and particularly. Christian theology has permeated much of Western culture, especially in pre-modern Europe, Revelation is the revealing or disclosing, or making something obvious through active or passive communication with God, and can originate directly from God, or through an agent, such as an angel. One who has experienced such contact is called a prophet. Christianity considers the Bible as divinely or supernaturally revealed or inspired, such revelation does not always require the presence of God or an angel. For instance, in the concept called of interior locution by Roman Catholics, thomas Aquinas first described in two types of revelation in Christianity as general revelation and special revelation. General revelation occurs through observation of the created order, such observations can logically lead to important conclusions, such as the existence of God and some of Gods attributes. General revelation is also an element of Christian apologetics, certain specifics, such as the Trinity and the Incarnation, are revealed in the teachings in the Scriptures and can not otherwise be deduced except by special revelation. Christianity regards varied collections of books known as the Bible as authoritative, Biblical inspiration is the doctrine in Christian theology concerned with the divine origin of the Bible and what the Bible teaches about itself. Different groups understand the meaning and details of inspiration in different ways, in many passages of the Bible it claims divine inspiration of itself. In the New Testament, Jesus treats the Old Testament as authoritative and says it cannot be broken in John 10,2 Peter 2 Pet 1, 20–21 says that no prophecy of Scripture. Christians who receive the Bible as authoritative generally think that the Bible is breathed out by God, in English,2 Timothy 3. 16–17 reads, All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correction and training in righteousness. Some argue that Biblical inspiration can be corroborated by examining the weight of the Bibles moral teaching and its prophecies about the future, corroboration of this sort is a form of Christian apologetics. Others maintain that the authority of the Church and its counsels should carry more or less weight in formulating the doctrine of inspiration, Christianity regards the collections of books known as the Bible as authoritative and written by human authors under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Some Christians believe that the Bible is inerrant or infallible, in addition, for some Christians, it may be inferred that the Bible cannot both refer to itself as being divinely inspired and also be errant or fallible. For if the Bible were divinely inspired, then the source of inspiration being divine, for them, the doctrines of the divine inspiration, infallibility, and inerrancy, are inseparably tied together. Historians note, or claim, that the doctrine of the Bibles infallibility was adopted hundreds of years after those books were written, the Protestant Old Testament is synonymous with the Hebrew Scriptures included in the Jewish canon, but not the Catholic Old Testament, which contains additional texts

36.
Mystery play
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Mystery plays and miracle plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song and they told of subjects such as the Creation, Adam and Eve, the murder of Abel, and the last judgment. Oftentimes they were performed together in cycles which could last for days, the name derives from mystery used in its sense of miracle, but an occasionally quoted derivation is from ministerium, meaning craft, and so the mysteries or plays performed by the craft guilds. As early as the century living tableaux were introduced into sacred services. The plays originated as simple tropes, verbal embellishments of liturgical texts, at an early period chants from the service of the day were added to the prose dialogue. The Quem Quaeritis. is the best known form of the dramas. These primitive forms were later elaborated with dialogue and dramatic action, eventually the dramas moved from church to the exterior - the churchyard and the public marketplace. These early performances were given in Latin, and were preceded by a vernacular prologue spoken by a herald who gave a synopsis of the events, the writers and directors of the earliest plays, were probably monks. Religious drama flourished from about the ninth century to the sixteenth, in 1210, suspicious of the growing popularity of miracle plays, Pope Innocent III issued a papal edict forbidding clergy from acting on a public stage. This had the effect of transferring the organization of the dramas to town guilds, vernacular texts replaced Latin, and non-Biblical passages were added along with comic scenes, for example in the Secunda Pastorum of the Wakefield Cycle. Acting and characterization became more elaborate, from the guild control originated the term mystery play or mysteries, from the Latin ministerium meaning occupation. The genre was again banned, following the Reformation and the establishment of the Church of England in 1534. The mystery play developed, in places, into a series of plays dealing with all the major events in the Christian calendar. By the end of the 15th century, the practice of acting these plays in cycles on festival days was established in parts of Europe. Taken as a whole, these are referred to as Corpus Christi cycles and these cycles were often performed during the Feast of Corpus Christi and their overall design drew attention to Christs life and his redemption for all of mankind. The variety of theatrical and poetic styles, even in a cycle of plays. Also extant are two pageants from a New Testament cycle acted at Coventry and one pageant each from Norwich and Newcastle upon Tyne. Additionally, a play of the life of Mary Magdalene, The Brome Abraham and Isaac

37.
Early modern period
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The early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages of the post-classical era. Historians in recent decades have argued that from a worldwide standpoint, the period witnessed the exploration and colonization of the Americas and the rise of sustained contacts between previously isolated parts of the globe. The historical powers became involved in trade, as the exchange of goods, plants, animals, and food crops extended to the Old World. The Columbian Exchange greatly affected the human environment, New economies and institutions emerged, becoming more sophisticated and globally articulated over the course of the early modern period. This process began in the medieval North Italian city-states, particularly Genoa, Venice, the early modern period also included the rise of the dominance of the economic theory of mercantilism. The European colonization of the Americas, Asia, and Africa occurred during the 15th to 19th centuries, the early modern trends in various regions of the world represented a shift away from medieval modes of organization, politically and economically. Historians typically date the end of the modern period when the French Revolution of the 1790s began the modern period. Early modern themes Other In 16th century China, the Ming Dynastys economy was stimulated by trade with the Portuguese, Spanish. China became involved in a new trade of goods, plants, animals. Trade with Early Modern Europe and Japan brought in massive amounts of silver, during the last decades of the Ming the flow of silver into China was greatly diminished, thereby undermining state revenues and the entire Chinese economy. This damage to the economy was compounded by the effects on agriculture of the incipient Little Ice Age, natural calamities, crop failure, the ensuing breakdown of authority and peoples livelihoods allowed rebel leaders such as Li Zicheng to challenge Ming authority. The Ming Dynasty fell around 1644 to the Qing Dynasty, which was the last ruling dynasty of China, during its reign, the Qing Dynasty became highly integrated with Chinese culture. The Azuchi-Momoyama period saw the unification that preceded the establishment of the Tokugawa shogunate. The Edo period from 1600 to 1868 characterized early modern Japan, the Tokugawa shogunate was a feudal regime of Japan established by Tokugawa Ieyasu and ruled by the shoguns of the Tokugawa family. This period gets its name from the city, Edo. The Tokugawa shogunate ruled from Edo Castle from 1603 until 1868, in 1392, General Yi Seong-gye established the Joseon Dynasty with a largely bloodless coup. Joseon experienced advances in science and culture, King Sejong the Great promulgated hangul, the Korean alphabet. The period saw various other cultural and technological advances as well as the dominance of neo-Confucianism over the entirety of Korea, during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, invasions by the neighboring Japanese and Qing Chinese nearly overran the Korean peninsula

38.
European witchcraft
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Instances of persecution of witchcraft are documented from Classical Antiquity, paralleling evidence from the ancient Near East and the Old Testament. In ancient Greece, for example, Theoris, a woman of Lemnos, was prosecuted for casting incantations and she was executed along with her family. The terms of the frequent references in Horace to Canidia illustrate the odium in which sorceresses were held, under the Empire, in the third century, the punishment of burning alive was enacted by the State against witches who compassed another persons death through their enchantments. The ecclesiastical legislation followed a similar but milder course, similarly canon 24 of the Council of Ancyra imposes five years of penance upon those who consult magicians, and here again the offence is treated as being a practical participation in paganism. This legislation represented the mind of the Church for many centuries, the early legal codes of most European nations contain laws directed against witchcraft. The Pactus Legis Alamannorum lists witchcraft as a crime on equal terms with poisoning. In this case, the accuser is required to pay a fine, with Christianization, belief in witchcraft came to be seen as superstition. Persecution of witchcraft nevertheless persisted throughout most of the Early Middle Ages, into the 10th century. Similarly, the Lombard code of 643 states, Let nobody presume to kill a foreign serving maid or female slave as a witch, for it is not possible, nor ought to be believed by Christian minds. This conforms to the thoughts of Saint Augustine of Hippo, who taught that witchcraft did not exist, the laws of King Athelstan, corresponsive with the early French laws, punished any person casting a spell which resulted in death by extracting the extreme penalty. Even then this was no new penalty, but the statutory confirmation of a long-established punishment. So the witches of Forres who attempted the life of King Duffus in the year 968 by the old bane of slowly melting a wax image, when discovered, were according to the law burned at the stake. The Canon Episcopi, which was written circa 900 AD, once following the teachings of Saint Augustine, declared that witches did not exist. But it were well if they alone perished in their infidelity, during the European Middle Ages, the centuries following Christianization of the continent, the Church focused on the persecution of heresy in order to maintain unity of doctrine. Practitioners of folk magic were left unmolested by the authorities, during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, there are few cases of witchcraft in England, and such accusations as were made appeared to have been brought before the ecclesiastical court. In the twelfth through fifteenth centuries, Christianity was throughout nearly all of Europe and was tied into what we now define as magic. There are many works from monks and priests rather than laypeople because they were literate. Much of their “magic” consisted of the usage of medicinal herbs in order to heal, each monastery was expected to be able to provide medical aid, a way in which they used various types of “magic” to become healers

39.
Age of Enlightenment
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The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement which dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th century, The Century of Philosophy. In France, the doctrines of les Lumières were individual liberty and religious tolerance in opposition to an absolute monarchy. French historians traditionally place the Enlightenment between 1715, the year that Louis XIV died, and 1789, the beginning of the French Revolution, some recent historians begin the period in the 1620s, with the start of the scientific revolution. Les philosophes of the widely circulated their ideas through meetings at scientific academies, Masonic lodges, literary salons, coffee houses. The ideas of the Enlightenment undermined the authority of the monarchy and the Church, a variety of 19th-century movements, including liberalism and neo-classicism, trace their intellectual heritage back to the Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment was preceded by and closely associated with the scientific revolution, earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included Francis Bacon, René Descartes, John Locke, and Baruch Spinoza. The major figures of the Enlightenment included Cesare Beccaria, Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, David Hume, Adam Smith, Benjamin Franklin visited Europe repeatedly and contributed actively to the scientific and political debates there and brought the newest ideas back to Philadelphia. Thomas Jefferson closely followed European ideas and later incorporated some of the ideals of the Enlightenment into the Declaration of Independence, others like James Madison incorporated them into the Constitution in 1787. The most influential publication of the Enlightenment was the Encyclopédie, the ideas of the Enlightenment played a major role in inspiring the French Revolution, which began in 1789. After the Revolution, the Enlightenment was followed by an intellectual movement known as Romanticism. René Descartes rationalist philosophy laid the foundation for enlightenment thinking and his attempt to construct the sciences on a secure metaphysical foundation was not as successful as his method of doubt applied in philosophic areas leading to a dualistic doctrine of mind and matter. His skepticism was refined by John Lockes 1690 Essay Concerning Human Understanding and his dualism was challenged by Spinozas uncompromising assertion of the unity of matter in his Tractatus and Ethics. Both lines of thought were opposed by a conservative Counter-Enlightenment. In the mid-18th century, Paris became the center of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity challenging traditional doctrines, the political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a separation of powers in a government, a concept which was enthusiastically adopted by the authors of the United States Constitution. Francis Hutcheson, a philosopher, described the utilitarian and consequentialist principle that virtue is that which provides, in his words. Much of what is incorporated in the method and some modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion were developed by his protégés David Hume and Adam Smith. Hume became a figure in the skeptical philosophical and empiricist traditions of philosophy. Immanuel Kant tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom and political authority, as well as map out a view of the sphere through private

40.
Americas
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The Americas, also collectively called America, encompass the totality of the continents of North America and South America. Together they make up most of the land in Earths western hemisphere, along with their associated islands, they cover 8% of Earths total surface area and 28. 4% of its land area. The topography is dominated by the American Cordillera, a chain of mountains that runs the length of the west coast. The flatter eastern side of the Americas is dominated by river basins, such as the Amazon, St. Lawrence River / Great Lakes basin, Mississippi. Humans first settled the Americas from Asia between 42,000 and 17,000 years ago, a second migration of Na-Dene speakers followed later from Asia. The subsequent migration of the Inuit into the neoarctic around 3500 BCE completed what is regarded as the settlement by the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The first known European settlement in the Americas was by the Norse explorer Leif Ericson, however, the colonization never became permanent and was later abandoned. The voyages of Christopher Columbus from 1492 to 1502 resulted in permanent contact with European powers, diseases introduced from Europe and Africa devastated the indigenous peoples, and the European powers colonized the Americas. Mass emigration from Europe, including numbers of indentured servants. Decolonization of the Americas began with the American Revolution in 1776, the population is over 1 billion, with over 65% of them living in one of the three most populous countries. As of the beginning of the 2010s, the most populous urban agglomerations are Mexico City, New York, Sao Paulo, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, all of them megacities. The name America was first recorded in 1507 in the Cosmographiae Introductio, apparently written by Matthias Ringmann and it first applied to both North and South America by Gerardus Mercator in 1538. Amerigen means land of Amerigo and derives from Amerigo and gen, America accorded with the feminine names of Asia, Africa, and Europa. When conceived as a continent, the form is generally the continent of America in the singular. However, without a context, singular America in English commonly refers to the United States of America. In some countries of the world, America is considered a continent encompassing the North America and South America subcontinents, the first inhabitants migrated into the Americas from Asia. Habitation sites are known in Alaska and the Yukon from at least 20,000 years ago, beyond that, the specifics of the Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion. Widespread habitation of the Americas occurred during the glacial maximum

41.
Quran
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The Quran is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe to be a revelation from God. It is widely regarded as the finest work in classical Arabic literature, the Quran is divided into chapters, which are then divided into verses. The word Quran occurs some 70 times in the text of the Quran, although different names, according to the traditional narrative, several companions of Muhammad served as scribes and were responsible for writing down the revelations. Shortly after Muhammads death, the Quran was compiled by his companions who wrote down and these codices had differences that motivated the Caliph Uthman to establish a standard version now known as Uthmans codex, which is generally considered the archetype of the Quran known today. There are, however, variant readings, with minor differences in meaning. The Quran assumes familiarity with major narratives recounted in the Biblical scriptures and it summarizes some, dwells at length on others and, in some cases, presents alternative accounts and interpretations of events. The Quran describes itself as a book of guidance and it sometimes offers detailed accounts of specific historical events, and it often emphasizes the moral significance of an event over its narrative sequence. The Quran is used along with the hadith to interpret sharia law, during prayers, the Quran is recited only in Arabic. Someone who has memorized the entire Quran is called a hafiz, some Muslims read Quranic ayah with elocution, which is often called tajwid. During the month of Ramadan, Muslims typically complete the recitation of the whole Quran during tarawih prayers, in order to extrapolate the meaning of a particular Quranic verse, most Muslims rely on the tafsir. The word qurʼān appears about 70 times in the Quran itself and it is a verbal noun of the Arabic verb qaraʼa, meaning he read or he recited. The Syriac equivalent is qeryānā, which refers to reading or lesson. While some Western scholars consider the word to be derived from the Syriac, regardless, it had become an Arabic term by Muhammads lifetime. An important meaning of the word is the act of reciting, as reflected in an early Quranic passage, It is for Us to collect it, in other verses, the word refers to an individual passage recited. Its liturgical context is seen in a number of passages, for example, So when al-qurʼān is recited, listen to it, the word may also assume the meaning of a codified scripture when mentioned with other scriptures such as the Torah and Gospel. The term also has closely related synonyms that are employed throughout the Quran, each synonym possesses its own distinct meaning, but its use may converge with that of qurʼān in certain contexts. Such terms include kitāb, āyah, and sūrah, the latter two terms also denote units of revelation. In the large majority of contexts, usually with an article, the word is referred to as the revelation

The early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages of the post-classical era. Although the …

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